


teach me to love just to let me go

by bluesxrgent



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Established Relationship, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, M/M, Memories, Memory Loss, Soulmates, lovers to strangers, nonlinear timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27528886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesxrgent/pseuds/bluesxrgent
Summary: Lucas thought that he and Eliott were soulmates. Now, Eliott doesn't even know who he is. Lucas doesn't know what to do so he acts on impulse- if Eliott can forget, then so can he.aka an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind au
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 34
Kudos: 122





	teach me to love just to let me go

**Author's Note:**

> i'm finally posting this after talking about it 5ever woohooo
> 
> title from 'ew' by joji
> 
> it's partially canon compliant/partially not just to fit the format and some characters roles have been switched around a bit to make it all work, so i hope that's not confusing ;)
> 
> also just as a note b4 anyone gets mad at me lol- eliott isn't the only one who did anything wrong, this is just mostly in lucas' pov so we see things the way he sees them, he's very much to blame for certain things too lol
> 
> tw for discussions of mental illness/allusions suicidal thoughts, brief mentions of violence

February 15, 2021

Lucas skips class on February fifteenth. He doesn’t know why, in fact, he almost got on the bus, but there was this tug in the back of his mind telling him to go to the petite ceinture, even though he’s never been there before. He takes a notebook with him that hasn’t been filled out in just over two years, though he could have sworn he’s journaled every day since he was sixteen years old. There’s a lot of the last two years he can’t remember, actually. Maybe he was in an accident? At least he remembers everything that matters, like his best friends and what he’s studying at university. Who needs to remember the details of high school anyway? His dad left, his mom was committed, and he was briefly homeless, what more could there be to remember? 

The petite ceinture is empty, and there’s a tug in his chest telling him that it’s beautiful there, even though he’d normally be afraid of going under the bridge because he’s afraid of the dark. It’s only mid afternoon now, though, so there’s no dark to be afraid of. He glimpses a graffiti tag on the concrete, a small stencil of a raccoon, and he smiles. He doesn’t remember when he started liking raccoons, but when he woke up this morning his face was buried in a stuffed raccoon, so he figures he must like them a lot. 

His phone rings, then, pulling him out of his haze. His phone screen is cracked, but he doesn’t remember when he cracked it. 

“Lucas? Where are you?” It’s Yann, his brain supplies, his best friend. 

“I, uh, I’m not coming to class today,” Lucas says.

Yann pauses on the other end of the line. “Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just felt like being elsewhere for the day.” It’s not a good excuse, but he doesn’t have one. 

“Elsewhere?”

“I’m at the petite ceinture,” he supplies, knowing Yann won’t drop it until he has all the details. 

Yann’s tone of voice takes him off guard. “You’re  _ where _ ?”

“The petite ceinture.”

Yann sighs. “Lucas you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“Doing what?”

“You know what.”

Lucas really doesn’t know what. He’s not sure he wants to. “Well, sorry, then.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Lu, I know it’s hard especially given… everything, but I promise it’ll be ok,” Yann says to him, and it sounds like he’s pleading. Lucas wishes he knew what the hell Yann was talking about. “I’ll talk to you later, ok?” 

Lucas nods, then remembers Yann can’t see him. “Ok.”

Yann takes a breath like he’s about to say something more, but then the line goes dead. He stands there, staring at his recent call log on his fractured screen for a moment, the only call in his phone other than the one with Yann is a missed call from a place called Lacuna, Inc. He has no idea what that is, or why they would have called him. A spam call, probably. The two calls look so lonely, sitting there together, but Lucas thinks it’s fitting, alone as he is. Or maybe he’s not alone… he feels a heat on the back of his neck, and when he turns, there's someone else there. He has a bright blue jacket on, and he might be the most beautiful person Lucas has ever seen. 

Their eyes meet, and Lucas swears he feels a spark, deep in the pit of his stomach, but then the stranger casts their gaze down, and walks away, hands in his pockets. Lucas tries not to feel disappointed by this lack of interaction, and wonders why he suddenly feels so strongly for this random person. It doesn’t matter though, it’s not like he knows how to talk to a beautiful boy, no one even knows he’s gay. 

Lucas takes a photo of the raccoon tag with his phone and leaves, figuring he should have just gone to class after all. It’s weird, though, when he looks through the photos on his phone, there’s weird gaps, and most of the memories documented there at all are fuzzy at the seams, like perhaps they happened, but he wasn’t actively a part of them. 

When he sits down at the bus station, he realizes he doesn’t know where he’s headed to. The bedroom he woke up in that morning was only vaguely familiar. He doesn’t remember moving out of Manon’s old room, but he supposes that must have happened when he started university, or something. Maybe his address is in his phone somewhere. 

He has one new text message from Yann, and it reads:

_ Oh, Lucas, tell me you didn’t do what I think you did. _

He doesn’t respond, mostly because he has no idea what Yann is talking about. He’s so lost that he startles in a very embarrassing manner when he realizes someone has sat themself beside him. 

“Fuck, you scared me!” he gasps, blinking wide eyes at the stranger. And… oh. 

The boy with the blue jacket laughs to himself. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t my intention.”

Lucas bites his lip, unsure how to proceed. Is this small talk, or is the boy here for a reason? 

“I feel like I know you from somewhere,” he says, and Lucas looks back up at him. He’s pretty sure he’d remember someone like this boy in front of him, so beautiful and striking and warm.

Lucas wrinkles his nose in response. “I don’t think so.”

“No, I’m sure of it.” A pause. “Have you ever gone to JM Videos?”

That name rings a bell in the corner of his mind, and ah, yes, there’s the memory. He and Yann used to go there and rent movies with Emma while the two of them were dating. He doesn’t think he’s been there in a long time, but there’s a lot of things he’s clearly not remembering properly, so he supposes he might have been there recently. “Yeah, I have.”

“Oh! That must be it then. I work there.”

“Oh.” Lucas nods. “That’s cool.” 

They lapse into silence again for a long moment, then the boy gestures his head to the notebook in Lucas’ lap. “What’s that for?”

“Oh, this? I don’t really know. I used to write in it a lot, but I guess I took a bit of a break… I’m trying to get back into it,” he explains weakly.

“Are you going to write about me?” 

A laugh escapes Lucas before he can help it. “Write about you? I don’t even know your name.”

A hand enters his vision. “I’m Eliott.”

There’s no mistaking the electricity when they take each other’s hands and shake. Lucas hopes Eliott feels it too. “I’m Lucas.”

“Lucas. I like it. I have a stuffed hedgehog, named Lulu.” Eliott retracts his hand, biting back a grin. “Kind of looks like you, actually.”

“Did you just compare me to a hedgehog plushie?” Lucas doesn’t know whether to be offended or endeared. 

Eliott pouts. “Don’t make fun. It’s my favorite.”

“I would never.” Lucas decides to be endeared. “In fact, I have a raccoon plushie of my own.”

Eliott gasps, a light in his eyes. “No way! It’s kismet, huh, the two of us meeting here?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Lucas says apologetically.

“Raccoons are my favorite animal,” Eliott says matter-of-factly. “It’s fate. I was meant to meet you here today, Lucas.”

Lucas doesn’t believe in fate, but  _ if _ he did… well, he might be listening. Eliott looks so excited, is the thing, and he looks like he really believes the universe put the two of them there for a reason, so Lucas decides to believe too, and decides to stop being so afraid for the first time in his life. 

“I’d invite you to my place, but I seem to be between flats at the moment,” Eliott continues, still looking at Lucas with that light in his eyes. 

“Oh?”

Eliott quirks a brow. “Straight to the personal questions, hm?”

Lucas stammers quickly, kicking himself in his mind. “O-oh, I didn’t mean— I’m sorry—”

Eliott’s laugh is loud and raucous, and it sends a shiver down his spine. “I’m messing with you, Lucas. I don’t know, it’s weird, I could have sworn I lived in this little flat on the other side of the city, but a few days ago I woke up on my old friend’s couch— a friend who I haven’t spoken to in years, mind you— and when I tried to go home, someone else was living there.”

And that’s… strange. The confusion must be showing on Lucas’ face, because Eliott laughs again, shrugging. “These things happen to me sometimes. Not very often, but…” he trails off, expression darkening for a split second. He meets Lucas’ gaze, eyes raw and open. 

“I’m bipolar, which means sometimes I have manic episodes, and I don’t always remember what happened during the time I was manic.” Eliott’s expression is more guarded now, as he looks back onto the street, but he keeps talking. “One of the weird things about this time is that I’m not depressed right now. Usually I slip into a depressive episode after I’m manic, but not this time I guess. I should be happy about that, I know, but I can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. I’m usually not manic for more than a few days, maybe a week at most, so I also don’t know when I would have found the time to get out of my lease, sell my flat, and reconcile with a friend I thought I’d lost forever, but I guess fate works in mysterious ways, huh?”

This time, when Eliott talks about fate, there’s no light in his eyes. He doesn’t look amused now, he looks lost, just as lost as Lucas has been feeling since he woke up. 

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this. You’re practically a stranger, I don’t even know your last name.” Eliott’s eyes are darkening more and more by the minute, and all Lucas wants to do is ease that worry, that pain. 

“Lallemant,” he says, “My last name is Lallemant.”

And just like that, Eliott’s face lights up again. “A beautiful name for a beautiful boy.”

Lucas blushes furiously. “I’m not— I don’t—”

Eliott ignores his muttering. “Another thing I found out when I woke up that day is that I broke up with my girlfriend, Annie, at some point. I tried calling her and she sounded so confused to be hearing from me.”

“I’m sorry. Are you sad about it?” Of course this guy is straight. Not that Lucas cares, of course. 

Eliott nudges his shoulder. “On the contrary. We were never well matched.”

“So, what, you’re looking for a new girlfriend, then?” Lucas jokes, hoping it lands. 

Eliott takes a deep breath out, leaning back in his seat with a nonchalant demeanor. “I suppose. Not necessarily a girl, though.”

Lucas’ head snaps to the left so fast that it makes Eliott’s eyes brighten with amusement. While Lucas is at a loss for words, Eliott says, “Demaury, by the way, is my last name.”

Eliott Demaury. Where has he been all of Lucas’ life?

February 12, 2021

Lucas almost lost his nerve as he walked to the video store. He knew that it probably wasn’t a good idea, that they needed some space for a little while, but he couldn’t help it. He hated when he and Eliott fought, and he hadn’t slept a wink since Eliott walked out of their apartment three days ago, because he knew that Eliott wasn’t coming back. 

The chimes above the door jingle as Lucas walks through, alerting anyone inside of his presence. He doesn’t see Eliott at the register, so he must be in the storage room. That’s fine, Lucas thinks, more time for him to psych himself up. 

“I’ll be with you in a minute!” a voice calls, and Lucas would know that voice anywhere. He sounds so happy, why does he get to sound so happy?

Seconds later, Eliott comes bounding up the stairs, in that stupid black turtleneck that Lucas loves more than anything, but he’s wearing a new, blue jacket. Lucas has never seen it before. It’s weird, Eliott has always been more partial to warm toned clothes, while Lucas prefers blue. He’s not sure if he’s ever seen Eliott wear blue before.

Eliott seems entirely unperturbed, seeing Lucas there in front of him. He raises his eyebrows. “What can I help you with?”

Lucas opens his mouth but no words come out. Is this really how they’re playing it? “Are you serious?”

“Yes?”

“Eliott, come on.” Lucas rolls his eyes. 

Eliott’s eyes narrow. “How do you know my name? Have you been here before?”

“You’re joking right?” This isn’t funny, if he is. 

“Oh!” Eliott’s eyes light up in recognition, grin taking place of his confused frown.  _ Thank god _ , Lucas thinks,  _ he’s happy to see me _ . Then, he continues, “You’re the guy who was setting up that Harry Potter movie marathon, right? Sasha, my coworker, told me you’d probably be coming today. But of course, you must know Sasha if she gave you my name. How did it go?” 

And just like that, Lucas is fucking bewildered once again. Before he can get another word in, knock some sense into Eliott, a girl comes up the stairs, bouncing the same way Eliott did. Eliott’s face gets all soft when he sees her, and he puts an arm around her, kissing her quickly. Lucas feels like the floor just got pulled from beneath his feet.

“Who’s this, babe?” she asks, and then a knife sinks its way into Lucas’ chest. 

Eliott grins at the term of endearment like Lucas wasn’t the one calling him that three days ago. “Customer who rented all of the Harry Potter movies for a marathon.”

“Oh fun! I love those movies,” she says, ignoring Lucas’ presence. To be fair, he hasn’t even looked at her once, he wouldn’t be able to pick her out in any type of crowd if he needed to. She must take Lucas’ silence for judgement, because she tucks herself deeper under Eliott’s arm and says, “Sorry for making you wait, we were—”

“Organizing DVDs,” Eliott fills in, and the knife twists. The girl laughs breathlessly, and Eliott’s thumb strokes her shoulder gently.

“Organizing DVDs,” she confirms. 

And suddenly, Lucas can’t take it anymore. He knows he should say something more, try to understand what kind of sick game Eliott is playing, but he feels like he might vomit, and he needs to get out of there. He hears Eliott calling after him in confusion as he rushes out, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t even slow down until he gets to Yann’s place and knocks at the door furiously. 

Yann looks happy to see him, but that happiness quickly turns to concern, and Lucas figures that says a fair bit about how he looks at the moment. He’s ushered in and discovers that Arthur and Basile are already there, fighting over pizza. The atmosphere changes when they notice him.

“Lucas? Are you ok?” Basile asks.

Lucas only has enough energy to shake his head. All of them know about the fight with Eliott, even if they don’t know all the details, because they had to deal with him breaking down about how this might actually be the end of what he thought would last forever. Yann’s the only one who knows everything, because Lucas left an embarrassingly long voicemail on the verge of a panic attack the other night when Eliott left. 

Basile looks like he’s about to say something more, but Lucas catches the end of a look Yann sends his way, and Basile shuts his mouth, becoming interested in the pizza again. 

“What happened?” Yann asks softly.

“I went to see Eliott at the video store,” Lucas admits miserably. He expects some sort of reaction, but he doesn’t expect all three of them to freeze up and look at each other with mild panic. Why is everyone acting so weird today? He continues, “I thought maybe we could talk things through, but then there he was, happy as can be and pretending he doesn’t even know me! And get this— he has a new girlfriend already. How does he have a new girlfriend?”

And there it is again, that shared panic between his friends. He hears Arthur murmur, “We have to tell him,” and he hears Yann whisper back, “You know we’re not supposed to do that,” and Basile cut in with, “I think it’s our only option.”

“Why are you guys acting so strange? What is it that you can’t tell me? Was Eliott cheating on me with this girl? Did you all know about it?” Lucas can hear his voice thinning, higher than it usually is, and Yann brings him over to sit on the sofa like he’s some helpless child. Maybe he is. 

Arthur hands him a card, and Lucas does a double take when he reads it, because  _ surely _ not, that’s not even possible. The name at the top says Lacuna Inc., which is something Lucas has never heard of in his life.

_ Mr. Broussard, _

_ Eliott Demaury has had Lucas Lallemant erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.  _

_ Thank you. _

It’s official, Lucas has stepped into some strange parallel universe.

“I don’t get it,” Lucas says flatly. 

Basile runs a hand through his hair, looking extremely uncomfortable. “Neither do we if we’re being honest. We all just got these in the mail yesterday, and when we tried to call for more information, they wouldn’t put us through.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it, if…” Yann trails off, and looks at Arthur. 

Lucas’ heart is clenching painfully in his chest. “If?”

Arthur finishes where Yann left off. “We ran into Eliott while we were getting coffee yesterday. I was expecting to have to defend your honor or something, but he didn’t even recognize us.”

“Wh— what do you mean? He erased you too?” Then why didn’t Lucas get a card explaining it? 

“No.” Arthur shakes his head. “He erased you, but pretty much all the memories he has of us are because of you, so those are gone as well. We talked to Idriss, and he told us Eliott didn’t even remember that they had made up, because he woke up one morning on Idriss’ couch, where he’s been staying since he left your place, and he tried to call  _ Annie _ , of all people. He thought they were still dating.”

Annie. The girl he’d broken up with to get together with Lucas. That was two years ago. “So in erasing me, he practically erased two years of his  _ life _ ?”

The three of them nod and it’s just too much for Lucas. He can’t believe that this is happening. It can’t be happening. He’s on his feet and on his way to the door before he knows it, feet on autopilot once again. All three of his friends call after him, but he just can’t. He needs to be alone, he needs to think. 

This apartment, he hates it. He loved it once, not so long ago, but now everything reminds him of Eliott, and it hurts even worse to know that nothing will ever remind Eliott of Lucas again. How could he leave Lucas here with all the memories when he gets to walk away happier than ever? It’s not fair. 

Lucas shoves his face into his pillow and screams, then cries, because it isn’t his pillow, it’s Eliott’s. And it still smells like him because it hasn’t even been a week since he walked out, but apparently it was long enough for Eliott to decide his life would be better if Lucas had never been a part of it. 

No. Fuck that. If Eliott gets to forget, Lucas should be able to forget too, right? When he reaches for his phone he doesn’t even realize that he still has the card Arthur handed him crumpled in his palm. Lacuna Inc. 

Before he even really considers what he’s doing, he reads the number on the card, types it into his phone and hits call. 

“Hello, this is Emily with Lacuna, Inc. how may I help you?” says a cheery voice on the other end of the line, and Lucas takes a minute to respond. If he does this, there’s no going back. His eyes snag on a photo booth strip of photos, the ones he and Eliott took shortly after they first began dating. He yanks the knife out of his heart and throws it at the photos, grip on his phone tightening. 

“Hi, I’d like to make an appointment. It’s urgent.”

February 15, 2021

Eliott’s blue jacket is thrown over Lucas’ shoulders and they’re running like the wind. Lucas is laughing so hard tears fall from his eyes, and Eliott’s hand keeps brushing his tentatively, as if asking for permission. Lucas wants to give it to him, he wants to give Eliott  _ everything _ . 

“Come on,” Eliott says, once they’ve both slowed down to a walk. Lucas doesn’t even remember why they started running in the first place, but he doesn’t care. Running down the street with Eliott has made him feel more in an instant than he’s felt in his whole life. 

“Come where?” Lucas asks, panting. 

“You’ll see.” He holds a hand out, and it’s a clear invitation. Will Lucas be afraid, or will he embrace what he wants for the first time in his life?

He takes Eliott’s hand, and they’re running again. Lucas doesn’t pay attention to where they’re going, but they end up at some sort of abandoned building. Eliott let’s go of his hand only to climb something to unhinge the door, pulling it open.

“Wow,” Lucas says, breath turning to mist in the cold. “How did you find this place?”

It’s covered with graffiti and— that’s weird, why is Yann’s instagram handle painted on the wall? Well, if Eliott found this place, Lucas is sure Yann could find it too. He takes a photo, to show Yann later, maybe they’ll have a laugh over it. 

“I didn’t find it,” Eliott says mysteriously, walking over to a big wall where it looks like some sort of mural has been painted, “It found me.”

Lucas stops beside him and watches Eliott take in the mural in front of him. It’s beautiful, Lucas thinks, but Eliott is more beautiful. In a soft voice, Eliott confides in him, “This is my favorite one. Those silhouettes on the wall, I don’t know, I feel like they’re my friends. I mean, obviously they aren’t, because I have like two real friends, but in a metaphorical sense.”

“I know what you mean.” Surprisingly, he does. He’s never really been one for art and artistic analysis, but he feels things when he looks at this, and he’s glad Eliott’s brought him here. The one on the end sort of looks like him, actually, with his wild hair and all.

Suddenly, Eliott asks, “What time is it?”

Now, Lucas wants to say, because all he’s feeling in this moment with Eliott is infinite, but instead he pulls out his phone and reads, “20:27.”

Eliott blinks. “Every time I look at the clock these days, it’s always 20:27.”

“Really?” Lucas asks.

Eliott nods and looks away from the mural to meet Lucas’ gaze. “That doesn’t happen to you?”

Lucas shakes his head, but adds, “Maybe it’s the universe again, telling you something important.”

“And what might it be trying to tell me?” Eliott’s closer now than he was a moment ago, and Lucas can see every color in his eyes. He wants to drown in them, drown in  _ him _ . 

“I guess that’s up to you to decide,” Lucas says, or doesn’t say, for how quiet his voice is. Eliott’s getting closer and closer still, but never quite close enough. Fuck it, Lucas thinks, and takes control of his life. He grasps the sides of Eliott’s face with both his hands, and the world explodes around them in a symphony of light and color.

(Or maybe it doesn’t, but it feels that way.)

They’re kissing is what they’re doing, and Lucas feels like the fog that settled over his brain when he woke up is finally dissipating. Everything in this moment feels right, and it feels like the start of something beautiful. And from the way Eliott grips his hair, kisses him with a fury unlike anything Lucas has ever felt before, he believes Eliott might be thinking the same thing.

February 13, 2021

The woman Lucas spoke to on the phone, Emily, is at the desk when he arrives. When he explained the situation, they had agreed to expedite his procedure, so he’d do the preliminary work today, and then have the process completed while he slept tomorrow. Lucas doesn’t care, he just wants it over with, he wants Eliott out of his mind once and for all.

He wants to smile easily, as Eliott had done, greeting a customer whose face he’d never seen before like he hadn’t a care in the world. He’s so, so, tired, and his heart is in too many pieces to pick up himself, so if someone else has to do it for him, so be it. 

“Dr. Renaud will see you now, Mr. Lallemant,” Emily says, just as he’s sat down in the waiting room. His hands are full, as he goes, following some assistant back into the depths of the clinic. He was instructed to bring everything that was tied in some way to Eliott so they could create some sort of map for the process to pinpoint memories and erase them properly. It’s beyond Lucas’ depth, because even though he studies science, nothing he’s done has ever covered memory erasure. He didn’t, however, bring the Eliott’s pillow, or the raccoon plushie that lays on his bed still, because he figures when the memories are gone those items won’t hold any significance anyway. 

Dr. Renaud looks like a kind man, and Lucas supposes he must be some sort of genius for inventing this technology, so he’s put at ease. The assistant directs him to a chair, and then straps some confusing looking device to his head, plugging it into the computer Dr. Renaud is working from. The bags of Eliott’s things, and Lucas’ memories with Eliott, sit lonely in the corner.

Dr. Renaud catches Lucas’ gaze and gestures to his assistant. “Lucille, will you move those to the back room?”

The assistant— Lucille— does as she’s told, brushing her hair in front of her face as she goes. Something about her is familiar, but Lucas is too distracted to put a finger on what it is. Paris is big, but it’s not  _ that _ big, he’s probably just seen her at the supermarket or something. 

Dr. Renaud places his hands on his knees and looks Lucas in the eye for the first time since he walked in the room. “Are you one hundred percent certain you wish to do this? It can’t be reversed, you know.”

_ No _ , Lucas thinks. 

“Yes.”

The doctor nods, satisfied. “Well, then, I’ll run you through what’s going to happen. Lucille should be cataloguing and scanning all the items you’ve brought with you today, and that information will be sent to my computer, along with the memories you have locked in your brain, and together those will make our map to exterminate Eliott Demaury from your memories. Then, tomorrow night, you’ll receive a package from us with two pills you have to take, simultaneously, and that’s when the actual memory erasure process takes place, while you sleep. Does all of that make sense?”

Lucas nods, fearing that if he opens his mouth to respond he’ll throw up instead. 

“You’ll feel a sort of tingling sensation for the first few minutes here, but that’s completely normal, it’s just our software adjusting to your unique brainwaves,” Dr. Renaud continues, and as he says it, Lucas starts to feel the tingling. It’s not wholly uncomfortable, just out of place. He feels a bit like he’s watching himself from outside of his body, but then— wait— he  _ is _ . Because there he is in the chair, and there Dr. Renaud is, but Lucille is still there too, and then he’s talking to Emily in the waiting room and suddenly it’s— 

February 14, 2021

Lucas fumbles with his mail key on his way into his apartment building. Louise, the woman who lives two doors down from them is passing through the lobby while he’s struggling, and she smiles at him warmly. 

“Have any fun plans with Eliott for Valentine’s Day?” she asks earnestly, and Lucas’ heart would break if there were any pieces left to break. 

He returns her smile weakly. “Nothing exciting.”

She looks at him like she’s seen the whole world and she loves every bit of it. “Well I suppose that’s just as well. Everything is exciting when we’re with the person we love, hm?”

Thankfully, she’s out the door before Lucas is forced to respond. He gathers his mail hurriedly, throwing everything onto the kitchen counter except the packet labelled LACUNA, INC. Just as he was told, there’s two pills resting inside, and he shakes them into his palm. Before he can overthink it, he swallows them dry, wincing at the vestiges of taste that reach his tongue as he does so. 

At first he thinks nothing is happening, and then he’s on his bed without having moved to get there. His eyelids are getting heavy, and for some reason he sees the mural he and Eliott painted back in his second year of school where the ceiling should be. Then it’s a rainy sky, then it’s his ceiling again, and then it’s nothing. 

The two people who have been waiting outside since Lucas got home gather their materials, and go inside, ready to get to work. 

February 13, 2021

Lucas is back at Dr. Renaud’s office, or maybe he never left. There’s another Lucas with some contraption stuck to his head in front of him, and the doctor himself is there, typing away. Lucas, whatever version of himself this might be, tries to get the doctor’s attention.

“Dr. Renaud? Hello? What am I doing back here?” he asks, and Dr. Renaud finally addresses him with what looks like light annoyance. 

“Lucas, please, I’m just trying to do what you paid me to do. It’s up to you to show me where to go, and we can’t get much done if we sit here talking like this,” Dr. Renaud sighs. 

Lucas furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

And then the room dissolves around him and he’s— 

February 9, 2021

Lucas sits on the couch in his apartment, waiting for Eliott. It feels like that’s all he does, some days, is wait for Eliott. It’s not like they had any particular date scheduled for that night, or anything, but it’s late, and it’s a Tuesday, and Lucas  _ knows  _ Eliott doesn’t have anything particularly important going on, school wise.

The doorknob jiggles, and Lucas sits up attentively, waiting for the footsteps he knows better than his own to come bounding through the door. Sure enough, after a few moments of struggle, there’s Eliott, in his orange jacket, and he has his arms full of groceries that look like they might not be very fresh anymore.

“Hey, babe,” he calls as he walks in, kicking his shoes off in a flagrant manner. He sets the groceries on the table without putting them away and he flops onto the couch, laying his head in Lucas’ lap. When Lucas doesn’t start playing with his hair, his smile turns into a frown. 

“Is everything alright?” he asks.

“Where were you?” Lucas counters. “You texted me that you were on your way home at  _ four _ . It’s half past midnight now, Eliott.”

Eliott sits up, confused. “I— I told you. Idriss needed me to pick up a few things for him at the store, and then the Bakhellals invited me to stay for dinner.”

“ _ No _ , you didn’t tell me that.” If he would have, Lucas wouldn’t even be upset right now. The explanation makes sense, and Lucas believes him, but it’s hard for him not to be insecure sometimes, even now. He’d think that by now he’d know well enough to know that Eliott isn’t the type of person to leave him like many other people he’s cared about, but for some reason that particular fear never seems to subside. 

“Yes I did!” Eliott argues, pulling out his phone. He scrolls determinedly, then his face falls. “The message didn’t go through. I’m sorry, Lu, I thought it did.”

“The message didn’t go through, oh sorry I just got held up, oh so and so needed something, my phone battery died, blah, blah, blah, I’ve heard it all before, Eliott,” Lucas snaps. 

Eliott’s face closes off immediately. “It was an honest mistake, you can’t seriously be mad.”

“You told me you were coming home  _ six hours ago _ . Logically, I told myself it was something like this, but what if it wasn’t?” Lucas doesn’t know why he’s pushing this so hard, but at the same time, come on. How hard is it to communicate? They’d been doing a lot better at it for a while, but it seems like recently everything is back to where they were when they’d just been starting their relationship. 

Eliott laughs humorlessly. “What, you thought I was fucking someone else or something?”

That wasn’t what Lucas had been thinking, actually, but he’s too embarrassed to say what he’d actually been thinking, and too scared to even properly voice it to himself. He sees Eliott as more than his mental illness, he does, but he can’t help the spike of fear that rises when Eliott says he’ll be home and then doesn’t show up or communicate for six hours after he was supposed to be home. Lucas  _ is  _ a logically minded person, but sometimes with Eliott all that logic flies straight out the window. It can be a good thing, at times, but it can also be a bad thing. 

Since he can’t say what he’s really thinking, he says, “I mean you said it yourself, humans are never truly satisfied. Always looking for the next best thing.”

“Lucas that was forever ago, and you  _ know _ I didn’t mean that—” Eliott says with an eye roll, and Lucas doesn’t really feel like having this conversation anymore.

“I’m going to bed.”

Eliott snorts at this. “Oh, sure, run away. You started this conversation, you know. It’s not my fault my text didn’t go through, and maybe, just once, you could practice this thing called  _ trust _ .”

Lucas wheels around. “Are you kidding me? All I do is trust you, and what do you do with it? You lie to me, or you omit details, and I look like some stupid housewife sitting at home waiting for my husband who doesn’t really love me.”

“You think I don’t love you?” Eliott’s voice is small. 

_ No, that’s not what I meant _ , Lucas wants to say, he knows Eliott loves him, he does. It’s so evident in everything he does, for the most part, but he’s being petty right now, and he also has a tendency not to think before he speaks. “I don’t know anymore. When people love each other, they don’t do the things you do.”

“And you’re so perfect, huh?” Eliott laughs again, malice in his eyes. Lucas has only seen it a handful of times before now, and he freaks out a bit internally. He didn’t mean for this to turn into  _ that _ kind of fight. “You just sit around talking with your friends about how much of a burden I am to have around, ignoring your own issues. Maybe people would stop leaving if you stopped giving them a reason to, did you ever think about that?”

Lucas’ heart leaps to his throat, and he sees the exact moment Eliott registers what he said. 

“Lucas, I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did.”

Eliott looks torn, and Lucas wants to comfort him, to let him know that they both just got caught up in the heat of the moment, but he stands his ground instead. “Why haven’t you left then? Because you know that you’re just as fucked up as me, or because you know that you can take advantage of how fucked up I am to get your way again and again?”

The apology on Eliott’s tongue halts in its path, Lucas can see it from the way his posture shifts. “If I’m that horrible to you maybe I will leave then.”

“Of course you will,” Lucas scoffs, but then Eliott is moving past him to the front door, dropping his keys in the bowl with a harsh clang.

“Won’t need those anymore.”

Lucas blinks. “Wait, Eliott, what are you doing?”

“I’m doing what you want me to do. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, and I’m clearly doing that by staying, so I need to go. We need to end this before it eats us both alive.” He sounds so sure of himself, and Lucas feels like he’s breaking apart inside. 

“No that’s— Eliott—” Lucas can’t get the right words out, and he can hear the panic in his voice.

Eliott sighs. “Look at us Lucas. Neither of us are happy. Neither of us trust each other. What are we even doing anymore? I sometimes wonder if you even  _ like  _ me.”

“Eliott, I love you of course I do,” Lucas says softly. He knows that’s not the question, but he doesn’t know if he has an answer to the real one. It’s not that simple. He likes Eliott, he’s always liked Eliott, but he doesn’t know when they stopped liking each other like they used to. Lucas knows deep in his heart that things aren’t what they used to be. There are too many unresolved problems between them. All the conversations they ignored, the times they started to argue but pretended nothing was wrong at the end instead.

“But do you like me?” 

The question hangs between them until Lucas musters up the voice to ask, in return, “Do you like  _ me _ ?”

For a split second, Lucas thinks everything might be ok, because he sees that depth of emotion in Eliott’s eyes that tells him he regrets this entire conversation, argument, whatever it is, but then Eliott turns away from him and walks out the door, slamming it shut behind him. The keys are still in the bowl, left behind.

Lucas sinks to the floor in shock. Of all the things Eliott might do to hurt him, intentionally or not, walking out, walking away, was the one Lucas had been sure he’d never do. His hands are shaking, in fury and in pain, as he grabs his phone and begins typing out a text. It goes against his better judgement, but he’s so angry and sad and in love and regretful and bewildered and he doesn’t know what to do with any of it, so he hits send. 

_ If you walk out now, you can never come back. I don’t want you anywhere near my life ever again.  _

February 13, 2021

Lucas is once again sitting in Dr. Renaud’s office, but he’s also following Lucille out of the room, with all of his things. He watches her scan the memories and send them over to the doctor in the other room, and then he watches as she takes his belongings with her instead of putting them in the room very clearly labelled for that purpose. Why is she taking his things?

February 1, 2021

Lucas is walking a few paces ahead of Eliott. He’s angry, and Eliott is chasing after him, but he doesn’t want to deal with it. He just wants to get some air and not have to talk about it. He doesn’t even know where he’s walking to, he just had to leave for a little bit, clear his head. It’s not even that big of a deal, really. Lucas knows he’s overreacting, he does. 

“Lucas I’m sorry, please, slow down,” Eliott is pleading, voice huffing as he runs. Lucas stops abruptly and Eliott almost knocks them both over.

Eliott seems so shocked that Lucas stopped to listen to him that he stands there with his mouth wide open, eyes darting from Lucas’ face to the ground and back again. He’s wearing the orange jacket, and the sight of it is enough to make Lucas’ heart clench painfully. “Um, I… I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Lucas says sarcastically. 

“I just forgot!” Eliott exclaims, and then realizes what he said, because Lucas’ mood sours further and it’s very visible on his face. Forgetting isn’t what’s bothering Lucas, it’s that when he remembered, it was treated as a burden, or something that didn’t matter all that much. 

“Why don’t you just forget me, then, while you’re at it?” Lucas is being harsh with his words because he knows that’s not even possible, to forget a person so fully ingrained into your life.  _ But wait _ . Wait. 

This already happened. And Eliott did forget him. Lucas knows how this conversation ends, and he’s beginning to remember why he’s reliving it as he does. 

“I would never forget you, Lucas, come on,” Eliott sighs, like it’s the most ridiculous thing in the world. And that’s just it— it  _ was _ the most ridiculous thing in the world. It was. But not anymore. 

Lucas knows that he’s supposed to just talk things out with Eliott right there and then, albeit to a point where they’re both still unsatisfied by the conversation and go to sleep facing opposite sides of the bed, but he can’t do that knowing what he knows, what he’s remembering. It’s not like it’ll matter anyway, this memory will be gone forever soon, and at least he’ll have gotten to give Eliott a piece of his mind. 

“I know,” Lucas is supposed to say, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “You did, Eliott.”

And then Eliott furrows his brow in a way that Lucas always found so fucking adorable. “What are you talking about? It’s just  _ one _ thing, one moment, and I swear I do remember, it was just  _ that  _ moment. I was distracted. I’m sorry, Lucas, I am, but you can’t seriously hold it against me.”

“Actually, yeah, I can. Because it isn’t just one moment. It’s everything. I’m here because you forgot me, and I can’t live remembering you on my own. I don’t want to. And I hate you for that. I never thought I could be capable of hating you, but I do.” Lucas can feel his hands shaking, and not from the cold. 

Eliott looks bewildered. “Lucas what are you saying? You  _ hate _ me over this? I— I love you.”

He knows this is a memory, and that this version of Eliott does love him, but this Eliott doesn’t exist anymore, and, for all intents and purposes, he never did. “No you don’t! You don’t love me! You love some girl who visits you at the video store, who calls you baby and tucks herself under your arm. And you know why you love her? Because you didn’t love me enough to remember me. Because you thought it was better to forget me than to forgive me. And I know I sound like a hypocrite because here I am doing the same thing, but you did it first! You did it first and I wish you hadn’t, because you gave me no choice! I’d rather never know that I was loved than know I was, but that you chose to forget about it without even talking to me first. That I wasn’t worth fighting for.”

Eliott’s face is a mixture of confusion and heartbreak, but Lucas just storms off anyway, away from the memory, away from the hurt. He hadn’t been entirely sure of his decision when he went into his appointment, sure, but now he’s more certain than ever. This is the right thing to do.

It’s not until he makes it back to the apartment that he’d just run away from, with Eliott not far behind him, still confused, that he remembers why he stormed out in the first place. It’s February first, and it’s the two year anniversary of when he and Eliott hung out for the first time, of when they started falling in love. He’d gone to play the same song he’d played for Eliott on that day, but Eliott had been wrapped up in schoolwork and had snapped at Lucas to practice the piano some other time. 

Lucas pauses in front of the piano, and he hears Eliott come in behind him, out of breath from trying to keep up with Lucas’ brisk pace. He comes to a stop next to Lucas. 

“You can still play it, if you want,” he says quietly. And Lucas almost does. He almost does, but then he catches a glimpse of the hope in Eliott’s face, and instead he picks up Eliott’s guitar, resting nearby, and smashes it over the piano, the keys clanging in a cacophony that almost drowns out Eliott’s startled scream. 

“I’m glad I’m erasing you! I can’t wait to have you out of my head!” Lucas yells. Everything is so loud, but it feels good, and Lucas smashes and smashes until— 

February 15, 2021

They’re sitting on a bridge looking down at the inky water of the Seine. It’s dark out now, and it’s colder, but Lucas doesn’t feel cold. He doesn’t feel anything but alive. He and Eliott are holding each other’s hands intentionally this time, and it feels so right. 

They’re the only two people in the world, it seems, even though it’s not that late. Everything is so quiet, but it feels good. 

Lucas feels a tug on his hand. “Come here.”

Eliott pulls him until the two of them are laying side by side on the pavement, looking up at the stars. Lucas glances around. “Eliott, anyone might show up.”

“So?” Eliott’s entirely unbothered, face illuminated by the moon. He looks so beautiful like this. He looks so beautiful every way that Lucas has seen him so far. “Show me which constellations you know.”

Truth to be told, astronomy has never really been Lucas’ thing. He knows a lot about biology, but not much about the stars. What he does know, though, is— 

“Polaris,” he says. It’s not a constellation, just a star, but it means something to him. At least, he thinks it does. Eliott’s silent, and his hand is stiff in Lucas’ palm. “It’s just a star, but that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. It’s more important than most, I’d argue, guiding people for centuries.”

“Polaris,” Eliott repeats. 

“It’s stupid, I know… I don’t know any constellations really—” Lucas begins, but Eliott cuts him off. 

“It’s not stupid.” He shifts his head to look at Lucas. “Polaris got me through one of the worst times in my life. I made a movie about it. Well, ‘made a movie’ is a bit of an exaggeration. I  _ wanted _ to make a movie, but I never got enough funding. It was called  _ Polaris _ , though.”

“I would have loved to have seen it,” Lucas says. He’s only barely scratched the surface on how incredible Eliott is, but he knows enough to see that Eliott has a beautiful mind, full of dreams that he’s bursting to turn into a reality.

Eliott shifts slightly, then says, “Tell me, where have you been hiding all this time? Before I knew you, I think your heart knew mine.”

Lucas stares blankly, unsure how to respond. It’s so intimate, the words of lovers destined to be remembered. Does Eliott really feel that way about him?

“It’s a line from the script,” Eliott explains.

“Oh,” Lucas says, equal parts relieved and disappointed, “Great rhyme scheme.”

Eliott cracks a sharp grin, bursting into an exhale of laughter. “Glad to know it meets your standards.”

“Shut up,” Lucas says with an eye roll and a smile, nudging Eliott’s shoulder beside his. He wishes they could stay there all night, and that this night didn’t have to end. He glances at Eliott and sees Eliott glancing back. Maybe the night doesn’t have to end.

“I live alone,” he says, and he sees the wonder in Eliott’s eyes as they gaze at one another.

“Must be awfully lonely,” Eliott whispers. 

Lucas bites his bottom lip, unsure whether the flush in his cheeks is from Eliott or from the wind. “It doesn’t have to be.”

Eliott looks back up at Polaris, so Lucas does too, but he squeezes Lucas’ hand. Yeah, the flush in his cheeks is definitely not from the cold. 

December 22, 2020

“Well? What do you think?” Eliott strikes a model pose, showing off his new jacket. It’s orange, and Lucas thinks the color suits his sunshiney demeanor quite well. It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but they’re celebrating a few days earlier because Eliott’s family had invited the two of them to Lille for the actual holiday, but Lucas would be staying home to visit his mom in her clinic. Eliott understood the decision, but they were both a little melancholy about spending the holiday apart.

“It’s ok,” Eliott had reassured him when he’d decided to stay home, “We have forever to spend the holidays together.”

Lucas had blushed even though Eliott had said that sort of thing many times before. Admittedly, they hadn’t had the  _ best  _ year, but they were both trying to learn and grow with one another. Lucas understands why Eliott is more secretive, holds things close to his chest rather than just let them out in the open, he does, but he just wishes Eliott would be more open with  _ him _ . The only things they fight about are things that don’t even need to become fights, but Lucas overreacts, and Eliott keeps things to himself, and it sometimes just feels like a never ending cycle. But they’re getting better, they are. These things take time, and Lucas is sure by their first kiss anniversary in February, things will be just as perfect as when they kissed for the first time.

(Minus the fact that Eliott had been dating Annie, and that Lucas had been dating Chloé, of course.)

Eliott is beaming so widely, looking like a work of art in his new jacket with his hair ruffled just right, and Lucas has to use every bit of self restraint he has not to jump him right then and there. 

“I love it,” Lucas says, because he does. Eliott had been complaining about needing a new jacket for a while, and Lucas didn’t exactly know what to get him, because he’d liked his old jacket an awful lot, so he’d given Eliott a fake voucher to pick out a new one, since it would end up being a present for both of them, with Eliott looking as hot as he does wearing anything, really— or nothing at all. 

Eliott blushes. “Yeah? Really, really?”

“Yes, really, really,” Lucas confirms with a laugh. It will never cease to amaze Lucas that Eliott doesn’t seem to know how attractive he is. “It looks so good, in fact, that I kind of want to rip it off of you.”

“Oh yeah?” Eliott’s grin turns coy. “Why don’t you, then?” 

And really, that’s all it takes. It’s not until later, when Lucas and Eliott are hiding under the covers breathing each other in like it’s the last time they ever will, that Eliott’s face becomes serious again. 

“Are you ever sick of me?”

It’s so out of nowhere that it takes Lucas aback momentarily. How could such a thing even be on his mind? “Why do you ask that?”

Eliott blinks but keeps his eyes down. “I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“Hey.” Lucas puts a hand on his face, brushing Eliott’s cheekbone with gentle fingers. “How you feel is never stupid.”

Eliott relaxes a bit under his touch, but still keeps his eyes low. “But that’s just it. How I feel sometimes  _ is _ stupid. And irrational. And just… not great overall. Even when I’m not having an episode. And I’m just— I’m so sick of myself. Not all the time, but sometimes. Enough.”

“Eliott, it’s the same for me. For everyone,” Lucas reassures him, but something tells him that Eliott isn’t going to listen to reassurances. 

“But are  _ you _ ever sick of me?” he asks again, and Lucas stays quiet for a moment. It’s not that the answer to the question is yes, but it’s not that it’s no either. Everyone gets sick of everyone at one point or another. He’s been sick of Yann more times than he can count, he’s been sick of  _ himself _ often enough that sometimes he wonders if he should be concerned. 

But Eliott doesn’t need to hear that it’s normal to be sick of each other every now and again, so instead he says, “No.”

“Really, really?”

“Really, really.”

Eliott smiles and finally looks Lucas in the eyes. “I love you more and more every day, you know that?”

“I never thought it would be possible to love someone this much,” Lucas admits. He’d always thought there was a cap to loving someone, and once you hit it, everything went down from there. 

And then, suddenly, Lucas is aware again that this is all a memory, and that this has all already happened before, and he realizes that he was wrong. He thought that he and Eliott were the exception, but this moment, this night, that was their cap. And as much as it hurts, Lucas also realizes, just as suddenly, that he wants to remember it. Even if it all went downhill from this night, he wants to remember the high, the most he’s ever loved a single person and the most he’s ever been loved by a single person. 

He has tears in his eyes as he begs anyone that might be listening, “Please let me keep just this one. I won’t ask for any more if you just let me have this one.”

Eliott looks confused, but all Lucas notices is that it’s darker now, and not because the sun has gone down. It’s dark in the way that Lucas can  _ feel _ himself dissolving, feel the fabric of this reality dissolving and it sparks fear in his chest.

He grips onto Eliott tightly, tears flowing freely. “I don’t want to forget this moment. Please don’t let them make me forget it.”

“Lucas what are you talking about?” Eliott sounds concerned, and Lucas can’t stop crying.

“I don’t want to forget it, Eliott, this was our peak. This is the most we ever loved each other—”

“Lucas, are you alright?”

“I don’t want to forget it!”

“You won’t, Lucas! You won’t! I don’t know why you think you would… But I promise you, you won’t forget—”

February 14, 2021

“Come look at this Luci,” Chloé says, pointing at the computer screen in front of her. Lucille’s been distracted all night, but the process had been fairly easy up until this point, so Chloé doesn’t really blame her.

She sighs, looking up from her phone at long last— honestly, who texts that much at one time— and joins Chloé at the table. 

“What am I supposed to be seeing?” she asks boredly. 

Chloé tilts the screen. “Look.”

Lucas Lallemant’s brain is mapped in various formats across the screen, but there’s a burst of activity on one of the maps that Chloé has never seen before. It looks panicked. It looks like something might be wrong.

Lucille just shrugs. “I don’t think that matters. It’s just one of the maps.”

“This is the first time I’ve run this solo, Lucille, I can’t afford to make any mistakes.” Dr. Renaud only gave her Lallemant because it was supposed to be easy. They’d already done his boyfriend, so this should be a piece of cake. And it was, until now. 

“Look,” Lucille says, pointing back at the screen. “It’s all normal now.”

Chloé’s gaze snaps to the screen. It appears she’s right. That’s odd… it looks like it stopped the moment he reached a new memory. Part of Chloé wants to question it further, but another part of her is just glad that everything is back on track. She glances over to where Lallemant lays on his bed, sleeping but not really. She would never say it out loud, because she works for them, but she can’t imagine undergoing this procedure. She still hasn’t decided if the people who choose to forget are brave or cowardly, but maybe they’re both.

Lucille is back to texting again, and Chloé has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. “What’s so important there on your phone?” she asks, coming out a bit harsher than intended. 

Lucille barely glances up, but she looks mischievous. “I’ve been seeing someone.”

“Oh?” It’s not that Chloé isn’t interested, but Lucille is always seeing someone new, so it’s hard to get all that excited. 

“It’s the real deal this time, I think,” she says, and that gets Chloé’s attention. Lucille goes on, bolstered by Chloé’s nonverbal interest. “We only met a few days ago, but it’s like we understand each other on every level, you know? I think I know him by heart already.”

That’s a bold statement, but Chloé wouldn’t expect anything less from Lucille. “What’s his name?”

“Eli,” Lucille says, smiling. “Well, that’s what I call him at least. It’s his preferred nickname.”

Something about that sounds vaguely familiar to Chloé, but she supposes she’s met a fair amount of people with that name in her lifetime. Lucille doesn’t offer any more information, so Chloé goes back to her work, but everything thankfully looks to be back on track. She just hopes it stays that way.

February 15, 2021

Eliott is back at Lucas’ place with him, and he’s admiring Lucas’ raccoon plushie. Lucas is anxiously looking around the place to make sure that the too empty walls don’t seem out of place, or that he doesn’t have anything embarrassing lying around. This place doesn’t really feel like home anyway, having only remembered living there for about twelve hours. He just wishes he knew  _ why _ he can’t remember… maybe that’s what Yann wanted to talk to him about. 

Shit. Yann. He never responded to him.

Lucas takes his phone out of his pocket but barely has a chance to glance at the screen before arms wrap around him from behind, turning him around and bringing him chest to chest with Eliott. 

“Not bored of me already are you?” Eliott asks, a smile overtaking his face. It’s so bright, Lucas wonders if it would burn if he touched it.

Lucas’ phone slips from his hand, clattering on the table beside him. “As if,” he says, more honest than he’d intended to be. There’s just something about Eliott that makes him feel safe, like he could say anything, bare the deepest parts of his soul, and Eliott would still be standing there with a smile on his face, heart open. 

He melts as Eliott leans into him again, lips meeting in perfect harmony. He doesn’t want this night to end. So, he lets himself be dragged into his own bedroom and lets Eliott push him onto the bed playfully before jumping in after him. Eliott’s eyes stray to the walls momentarily, laughter on his lips. 

“You’re quite the interior designer, huh?” Eliott asks, taking in the sparsity of the room and the three blocks of blue paint on one of the walls. 

Lucas shoves him. “I only moved in very recently.” He pauses. “I think.”

Eliott snorts. “You think?”

“Memory’s not what it used to be,” Lucas sighs, running one of his hands through Eliott’s hair. 

Eliott shakes his head with suppressed laughter, folding one of his hands over Lucas’ free one. “I didn’t accidentally take a grandpa to bed, did I? You don’t look a day over twenty!”

Lucas rolls his eyes, spine tingling as Eliott brushes the back of his hand with his thumb. “Eighteen, actually. My birthday isn’t until July, so I’m kind of a baby.”

“July eleventh,” Eliott says, almost like he didn’t mean to say it at all, and Lucas pulls away from him ever so slightly. 

“Yeah, actually. How did you—?” 

Eliott blinks, then furrows his brows. “I don’t know. Lucky guess, I suppose.”

“You’re not a stalker, are you?” Lucas teases, sinking back into Eliott’s embrace. Eliott kisses the tip of his nose.

“Would a stalker do that?” he asks earnestly, and Lucas busts out laughing. 

“Yes. A stalker would most definitely do that, you’re not really helping your case.”

Eliott melts into laughter as well, knocking their foreheads together. “What kind of stalkers do you know? I thought most stalkers murdered their stalkees.”

“I don’t think that’s a word.”

“You’re just deflecting because I’m right.”

“I’m not deflecting!”

Eliott raises one eyebrow. “You  _ so _ were, that’s a classic—”

He doesn’t get to finish, because Lucas cuts him off with a kiss. A kiss that lasts forever, or at least Lucas wishes it would. When they pull apart after what could be eighty years or eight seconds, Lucas looks Eliott’s face up and down, taking in the soft contentment that rests there.

“ _ That’s _ deflection,” he says proudly, and Eliott laughs loudly, pulling Lucas into him and melding their bodies together like that’s where they were always meant to be. 

Lucas thinks that maybe they were. 

June 27, 2020

Eliott caresses Lucas’ cheek as they kiss, and Lucas holds him tightly by the waist. He’s so proud of Eliott and all that he’s done for this film. He wishes that he would have been able to act in it like Eliott wanted, but the days he had to shoot had been scheduled too close to the BAC, and Lucas’ brain couldn’t take any more memorization. It ended up working out fine for Eliott anyway, which they’re both glad about. 

When they pull apart, Eliott is looking at him with so much love in his eyes that it’s hard for Lucas to not whisk him away right then and there. Lucas can’t believe how lucky he is, loving and being loved so hard, for the rest of his life. He wonders if the alternate versions of himself are this happy, and he hopes they are. Everyone deserves to feel how he feels at this moment. 

June 13, 2020

Lucas is pissed as all hell. When Eliott said that he was spending time with Lola because she really needed a friend, this was not how he expected the night to go. He knows she’s dealing with a lot of shit, Daphné had said as much when she introduced all of them to her, but he’s still mad at her, mostly because he feels like he can’t be properly mad at her. Especially not right now. No, right now she’s high and drunk out of her mind and not wearing a shirt, so Lucas’ protective instinct is taking over because no matter what she may or may not have done or said, she’s just a kid, really, and this is an obvious cry for help.

Unfortunately, she’s not the only one who needs help. Eliott’s drunk as shit too, and his knuckles are bruised, because apparently he’d gotten into a fight with a security guard at the club. It’s not very in character for Eliott, but he also has never seen Eliott this drunk before. 

Thankfully Daphné gets there quickly, so Lucas doesn’t have to look after Lola for too long, and then he drags Eliott alongside him back to their apartment, Eliott cuddling up to him incoherently, mixing ‘I love you’s’ with ‘I’m sorry’s’. 

Lucas wants to say  _ you should be sorry _ , but it’s not like Eliott hasn’t had to deal with his drunk ass on many occasions, so it’s not entirely fair of him to even think the words. 

(Though Lucas doesn’t usually fight security guards when he’s drunk, admittedly.)

Lucas doesn’t say a thing until they’re both back at home and Eliott has a glass of water in his hands. Even then, he feels like he’s at a loss for words. His immediate reaction was to blame himself, surely he’d done something to make Eliott want to do whatever he did tonight, but he chides himself internally. Yes, maybe he did, but Eliott is also an adult and can make his own decisions. It’s also narcissistic for him to think that everything Eliott does has to do with him, because he knows that’s obviously not true. 

In the end, he settles for a simple, “Why?”

“Why does she know about the barge, Lucas?” Eliott asks, like he didn’t hear Lucas’ question. It takes Lucas off guard, because why does she know about the barge? He did tell Manon and Emma that one night, when they were all drunk… and the boys the next week at school, when he’d learned Basile’s mother was bipolar as well. He supposes he should have known his friends like to gossip, even about each other. 

“Is that all you do with your friends? Talk about me like I’m a burden, like ‘crazy Eliott’ is at it again? Is that why you don’t trust me to go out for a night by myself? Because you know that I’ll mess up, because you expect me to?” Eliott continues, and though his speech is slurred, he hits every point he’s trying to make. 

“Where is this coming from?” Lucas asks, instead of answering. 

Eliott crosses his arms over his chest. He’s past the emotional and lovey stage, apparently. “Lola said—”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Oh, Lola said. Because Lola knows you so much better than I do, or so much better than you know yourself, right?” 

Eliott blinks, like he’s considering this, then frowns. “But she’s not wrong. She only said what I was already thinking. I’ll never be good enough, because you’ll only ever be worried about me, or what I might do. Everyone’s just waiting for me to fuck up so they can prove themselves right about me.”

“Everyone, including me?” Lucas asks softly.

Eliott only shrugs. “You tell me.”

Lucas’ heart cracks a little bit. “You fuck up, that’s on you. You’re not fulfilling some destiny, no matter what some sixteen year old you’ve known for a few months might tell you. And you’re allowed to fuck up, ok? So am I, so is everyone, but that doesn’t mean we’re not also allowed to worry about each other. I wasn’t worried when you said Lola needed a friend tonight, I  _ was _ worried when I got a call from the security at the club telling me to come pick you up because you’d gotten in a fight, and I don’t think that’s too fucking wild of a thing to be worried about!”

“We said minute by minute Lu!” Eliott’s speech is still slurred when he says it, and it makes Lucas irrationally angry.

“I know that we did! Don’t you think I know that? I know that every time you disappear to god knows where and I’m left at home like some fling you got tired of. I know that when it comes out that you’ve lied to me for ages about stupid things that I wouldn’t care about if you just  _ told me _ , and my mind jumps to the worst possibilities! Don’t you dare bring that into this, because that’s not what this is about. I’m allowed to be upset, Eliott! Fuck!” Lucas screams, and clenches his fists in his hair. Eliott looks stunned. 

“I… that’s really what you think?” Eliott sounds more sober now, like Lucas’ yelling snapped him back to reality. 

Lucas drops his hands and gestures vaguely. “Tell me what I’m supposed to think. I love you Eliott, more than myself sometimes, but I can’t help but feel like you might stop loving me one day and I might not even know until you’re long gone.”

Lucas looks down to his chest, because he can feel tears brimming in his eyes, but he will not allow himself to cry. Not about a stupid fight Eliott won’t even remember in the morning. Still, he sniffles like an idiot, and then both of Eliott’s hands are caressing his face, lifting his head so their eyes can meet. 

“I know it’s not an excuse, and I  _ promise _ , I’ll try to do better, but sometimes I feel like I lie about things because I love you so much. I didn’t want you to know about my past with Idriss because I was ashamed of it, and I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I didn’t tell you about urbex because sometimes I need to be alone, to have something just for  _ me _ , but I didn’t want you to think that means I love you any less or wish you were in my life less, because that’s not the case at all. You just… you’re a little different than me. You surround yourself with your friends when you feel a certain way, and I prefer to surround myself with nothing, or with art, or nature…” Eliott trails off, like he doesn’t know if he’s explaining things properly. 

The thing is that Lucas  _ does  _ understand, and he’s always known this about Eliott. It’s part of what he loves about him. “I get it, I do, but how am I supposed to know any of that if you never tell me, Eliott?”

Eliott shrugs miserably, then presses their foreheads together. “I’m sorry.”

“I am too,” Lucas admits, “For making you think I wouldn’t understand, or would ever love you any less.”

They stand there for a minute, heads pressed together with Eliott’s hands still on Lucas’ face. Sometimes Lucas thinks he’s going to love Eliott so much that he’s going to break his own heart in the process. He doesn’t know why he feels this way, because hypothetically if they love each other that much their hearts should never be broken, but it’s just an instinct he can’t seem to shake, almost like he’s seen the future and knows something terrible. 

“Come on,” Lucas whispers, their lips a hair’s breadth apart. “Let’s go to bed.”

They still need to talk more, but it can wait until the morning. 

February 16, 2021

It’s a little bit past midnight, and Lucas is still kissing Eliott, but they’re lying in Lucas’ bed and he doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy. 

“Am I your first?” Eliott asks, running a thumb down Lucas’ cheekbone. Lucas raises an eyebrow in a silent question. Eliott elaborates, “Your first guy.”

And it’s weird, because he  _ is _ , but Lucas also feels experienced. He knows exactly what to do to make Eliott moan in his ear, or sharply intake his breath. And he knows exactly what he wants Eliott to do to him, and has an idea of how it will feel when he does. But he’s never done any of this before, so it’s strange that he knows those things the way he does. 

Instead of answering, he laughs nervously, which Eliott takes as confirmation. “What about you?” he asks, because if he, somehow, knows what he’s doing, then Eliott  _ definitely _ does. 

Eliott raises his eyebrows with a smirk that has Lucas saying, “Ah, ok, I see how it is then.”

The laugh Eliott responds with is so bright and vibrant it puts the stars streaming through Lucas’ window to shame. This whole day, and night has felt like a dream, and Lucas doesn’t want to wake up.

February 14, 2021

Lucas wants to wake up. He can’t stand these memories anymore. He wants Eliott gone from his mind, but he doesn’t want to have to live through it all again. It hurts too much and he just wants out. Faintly, he hears voices. It sounds like two girls, but he can’t be sure, because he couldn’t open his eyes if he tried. He’s so glad that he won’t have to hurt anymore, but seeing the memories flash by isn’t helping anything. Why can’t they do this without making him remember it all first? He wants to wake up, but he knows that he won’t, because— 

March 6, 2020

Eliott wouldn’t tell him why he brought a duffel bag to the party. He said it was a surprise, and Lucas likes surprises, but he’s also impatient. Admittedly, Lucas feels like their relationship is a bit tense at the moment. Nothing too serious, but Lucas likes avoiding questions and Eliott likes avoiding answers, so they’ll either have to fix that soon or implode. 

(Lucas would rather not implode, if given the choice.)

It’s just that Eliott doesn’t seem to worry about the same things that he does, and sure, that makes sense because they’re completely different people with different lives and priorities and such, but some of their priorities  _ should _ line up. Like each other. 

Lucas knows he isn’t always the best at prioritizing their relationship, because it feels like a constant that he can rely on most of the time, and he knows that annoys Eliott. Like the fact that he recently had to break it to Eliott that he can’t act in his film for class like he promised to. He hadn’t thought it would be a big deal, honestly, he’s not an actor anyway, but Eliott hadn’t taken it well at all. They’d barely talked for about a week afterward, and it didn’t help that it was right around the anniversary of a lot of their firsts, and things had been weird around Arthur at the time too, and Eliott felt a bit lonely since Sofiane and Idriss didn’t go to university with him. 

But Eliott isn’t always the best at prioritizing them either. Some nights he’ll stay out so late that Lucas knows he isn’t just working like he says, but he can’t come up with another explanation. He could be in his studio at school, but why wouldn’t he say where he was? Lucas has been scolded by practically all his friends about a million times over for worrying about Eliott leaving, and he always says it’s because Eliott has more options, but really it’s because Lucas is worried Eliott will wake up one day and realize he chose wrong. That Lucas isn’t that special.

But that doesn’t matter right now, because they’re at a party, and Eliott is dancing in that weird somewhat embarrassing way he always does, and insecurities aside, they’re in love. 

After a little while, Lucas gets dragged into a conversation with Yann, then Basile tells him that apparently Daphné has a sister and that’s why she’s been acting so weird recently, and he realizes he hasn’t seen Eliott in a while. 

He excuses himself from conversation with Mika and Camille, and circles the space, looking for where Eliott could have gone. When he finds him, he stops dead in his tracks. 

Eliott’s a fantastic artist, he’s known this practically since they first met, but this is something else entirely. He’s made a universe on the wall of the warehouse they’re in and inside the painted galaxy are black silhouettes, all standing side by side. He might be crazy, but he thinks the silhouettes represent Lucas and his friends. He’s so caught up in watching, he doesn’t notice when Eliott notices him. 

“Hey! You’re not supposed to see this yet!” Eliott says, but he’s smiling brighter than the sun. Lucas can’t quite wipe the awe off his face. 

“It’s beautiful.”

Eliott shrugs like it’s nothing at all. “It’s for you. All of you.”

Moments like these are why Lucas can ignore the problems most of the time. There’s so much love there, on both ends, it’s hard to imagine a universe where things don’t work out. 

“Which one’s me?” he asks, and Eliott scoffs like he’s offended.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he responds, pointing to a silhouette that, even in this form, has a wild head of hair. Lucas giggles, but it’s hard to keep the tears from his eyes. Eliott calls him his muse all the time, but he’s never seen it so plainly before.

“Holy shit, dude!” Yann says with a low whistle, approaching them with Emma. Imane follows shortly after with Idriss and Sofiane. Neither of them are on the mural, but they clap Eliott on the back appreciatively regardless. Lucas furrows his brows as he realizes Eliott didn’t paint himself either. It ends with Lucas. 

He doesn’t ask about it, too moved by the gesture at the moment to feel anything but love, but it does make his heart hurt, just a little bit. Arthur’s the only one not with them, so Lucas goes to find him, trying to dry his eyes as he does. 

When they come back, Eliott’s finishing up, and each of them stand in front of their silhouette, Yann to Lucas’ left, then Emma, Arthur, Alexia, Imane, Basile, and Daphné. Manon should be there too, really. Lucas thinks they all miss her but no one wants to say so, because they know it’s fruitless to pretend she’ll be back anytime soon. 

Lucas is well aware he’s crying openly now, but he can’t help it. Yann claps him on the shoulder and he reaches back. It’s crazy to think that it used to be just them and Emma, and now they’re all a family. Yann reaches for his hand and Lucas grips it tightly, laughing to himself at the fact that two years ago this contact would have sent him into a full gay spiral. 

Eliott’s standing against the wall, watching them all look at his masterpiece, and his eyes are bright with tears too. Lucas watches him watch them, looking until Eliott looks back, and when he does, his smile lights up the dark, and Lucas feels more love in that moment than he has in his entire life. Everything with Eliott is worth it, the good and the bad. It really is. He’s so proud to call himself Eliott’s boyfriend, and he knows he will be forever. Or at least until he’s proud to be called Eliott’s husband, if that’s not too presumptuous of him to think. 

“I love you,” Lucas mouths to him, and he can see Eliott blush, even under the low lighting.

Eliott mouths right back, “I love you too.” 

February 20, 2020

Lucas isn’t talking to Eliott, but he won’t tell him why. He won’t tell him why, because he knows Eliott will be able to explain it away and make him feel better, but he wants to be mad right now. He thinks it’s well within his right to be pissed off, having just heard Eliott say that people are always waiting for the next best thing, never satisfied with what they have. 

The problem with it is that Lucas has never thought that way. Eliott’s it for him, there’s no one better. He’d honestly thought they were on the same page, even if it was baffling sometimes, but apparently not. Now it’s not a matter of  _ if _ Eliott is going to leave, but when. 

“Lucas, please just talk to me,” Eliott says, drawing Lucas away from his thought spiral. 

Lucas sinks further into the couch without responding. Eliott sighs loudly and plops down next to him, looking at him with the eyes that had nearly made them adopt a bunny earlier that week. And damn him, because Lucas is too weak to resist that look. 

“Do you still want to be with me?” he blurts.

Eliott stiffens, eyes going wide. “Woah, where did that come from?”

“When we were talking with Arthur earlier… you said that people are never satisfied with what they have, that it’s natural to cheat, or whatever,” Lucas mumbles, lifting his hood over his head to hide his face. 

“I mean, we both cheated to end up here,” Eliott points out.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Lucas still feels terrible about what he did to Chloé, but at the same time, it isn’t quite the same as Eliott cheating on Annie. It was just as shitty, but the feelings had never been there on Lucas’ side with Chloé. He hadn’t left someone he loved. And sure, Yann and now Arthur were guilty of the same thing, but why did that have to make it ok? Why commit to someone if you’re not going to be faithful?

“Lucas of course I still want to be with you. I said that for Arthur’s sake, because I could tell how shitty he felt.”

Lucas folds his knees to his chest. “Shouldn’t he, though? I mean, I know he’s one of my best friends, but I’m friends with Alexia too. She’s going to be hurt by this, and her feelings should matter too.”

“Is this about Arthur and Alexia or about us?” Eliott asks. 

Lucas groans in frustration. “Neither. Both. I don’t know! I just don’t know why it’s so easy for you to justify cheating, but then turn around and act like I’m crazy for being worried about it.”

“I’m sorry, Lucas, I really am, but I wouldn’t have said anything if I knew you still didn’t trust me, trust  _ us _ .” Eliott sounds cold, and Lucas thinks they’re about to argue. Ugh, this is why he hadn’t wanted to say anything to begin with. 

“I do trust you! But sometimes you give me reason to question things. Blind faith is just as bad as distrust.” 

Eliott shakes his head. “No it’s not. I trust you wholeheartedly, I never question it. How could that be worse than not trusting you at all?”

“Because you know I’ll always be there! If anyone leaves, it’s going to be you, not me. We both know it, even if you deny it. I know there’s no one better out there for me, but you said it yourself, you think there might be.” Lucas doesn’t look up as Eliott stands, turning away. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t want to fight with you about this,” Eliott says, voice void of emotion, which Lucas knows means he’s feeling too much. 

Lucas grumbles, “We’ll have to fight about it eventually.”

“Maybe,” Eliott agrees, then walks into the other room. Lucas lets out a shaky breath, but oddly he doesn’t feel like crying. He doesn’t feel much of anything at all. Weirdly, it feels like he’s on the outside of everything, watching it happen like a car crash in slow motion. It feels like he knows that this never gets addressed properly and keeps building until it can’t hold itself in anymore, and Eliott leaves and Lucas makes sure he never comes back. It feels like his heart is getting ripped apart, but then it feels like nothing again, because there’s nothing there, actually, and this is all just a memory, and now it’s dissolving again. 

February 16, 2020

_ When we’re fifty, married, and going to Kathmandu _ . He’d said it in jest, but now he can’t stop thinking about it because Eliott had barely batted an eye. Like he agreed, like it was inevitable. And maybe it is inevitable. Lucas dares to allow himself to hope so. 

Eliott’s hand is resting on his knee while he drives, all of their friends chattering away in the backseat. Lucas likes this little bubble they’re in, separated but still a part of the group. Eliott’s wearing his red jacket and it’s so bright just like he is, so bright that it brings a smile to Lucas’ face. 

Eliott turns to look at him, and Lucas is caught staring in a way that would have been embarrassing a year ago, but not now. He smiles softly. “What?”

Lucas shrugs, and keeps his voice low enough that his friends won’t be able to tease him mercifully later. “I just love you, is all.”

“Oh, is that all?” Eliott jokes, but he squeezes Lucas’ knee. 

Lucas smiles and looks away, out the passenger side window. “You can say it back, you know.”

“Hey,” Eliott says, and Lucas turns back to look at him again, “I love you.”

Lucas places his hand over Eliott’s, and it’s like that jolt of contact brings him awareness, once again, that this isn’t real. Or, it was, but it’s so far in the past it may as well be ancient history. And Lucas gets angry again, because yes, the painful memories live up to their name, but these are worse because he’s aware that he’s losing them. He’s losing the happiest moments of his life, and that doesn’t seem fair. Sure, it’s what he signed up for, but can’t they let him keep some of them, just tuck them deep away into his memory where it won’t hurt so much to know they’re being ripped away?

He’s struck by inspiration, and tightens his hold on Eliott’s hand. If they change the memory, then it’ll have to stay, right? This process knows how to target old memories, not new ones. 

“Eliott?” Lucas asks, heart beating rapidly, like he’s about to get away with something. He just might, if he’s lucky. 

Eliott frowns at him in confusion. “Yeah?”

“I want you to crash this van.”

Eliott’s eyes nearly bug out of his head and he swerves the van precariously. “I-I’m sorry?”

“Don’t worry, nothing bad will happen,” Lucas reassures him. At least he doesn’t think so. “It just needs to change enough that it’s impossible to forget.”

“You’re not making any sense, Lucas, are you ok?” Eliott’s voice is laced with concern, and Lucas gets it, because in any other circumstance this would be a major call for concern, but this isn’t real, not how it used to be. 

“Please, just do it,” Lucas begs.

“What about our friends, Lu? I don’t want any of them to get hurt!” Eliott makes a valid point, but Lucas knows from the fact that he hasn’t heard them in about five minutes that they’ve already started to disappear. 

“They’re not here, Eliott. And neither are we, not really.”

“I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Look in the backseat.”

Eliott turns and Lucas watches as his face pales. “What the fuck is going on?”

“This is a memory,” Lucas explains, hoping he doesn’t sound too crazy. Eliott’s wide eyes tell him that he does, in fact, sound crazy. “It’s a memory because I’m trying to forget you.”

“Why would you try to forget me?” Eliott asks, sounding hurt.

“Because you did first,” Lucas says in no more than a whisper. 

Eliott either doesn’t know what to say to that, or didn’t hear Lucas, and honestly, Lucas is fine with either option. He does get a sick sense of gratification in Eliott’s surprise, though, because it’s probably only a fraction of how Lucas felt, going to the video club and realizing his boyfriend had no idea who he was, and part of him does want Eliott to feel that same pain, even if it's just a figment of his memory.

“So you want me to crash the van, then?” is all Eliott says, when he decides to speak again.

“Yes please.”

“So you can remember this… why?”

“Because I was so happy, and I thought we were going to love each other forever.” He sounds so pathetic, he knows he does. 

Eliott doesn’t say anything for a minute, but then he looks Lucas dead in the eye with an intensity usually reserved for the bedroom. “Fuck it,” he says, and takes both hands from the wheel, leaning over to kiss Lucas more passionately than he’s ever been kissed, and Lucas loses himself in it until a truck on the other side of the road crashes into them and sends them spiraling. Eliott holds onto Lucas through it all, and Lucas thinks that he just might have made a memory worth remembering, as the van lands on its side and both of them, covered in blood and scratched up from the glass but still breathing, grip each other tightly, intentionally. 

“I don’t want you to forget me,” Eliott says, choking on a sob, and Lucas stops breathing for a second, because as hurt as he is, he doesn’t want that either. It hits him like a brick over the head, or perhaps like a truck sending him spiraling over the road. This was a fucking stupid idea, and he doesn’t want to forget Eliott. There was too much love there for too long, and robbing himself of that is the worst thing he can think of. 

“I don’t want to forget you,” Lucas says, and he’s shaking, partly from adrenaline and partly from this epiphany. “It’s not just this moment, or the one from the night when you got your new jacket,  _ I don’t want to forget you _ . I fucked up, I’m such an idiot, Eliott I love you and I don’t want to forget—”

February 14, 2021

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Chloé slams her hands into the keyboard, breathing rapidly. This isn’t supposed to be happening. The memory isn’t supposed to be rewriting itself. 

“Chlo, take it easy,” Lucille says, face buried in her phone again. Chloé picks up the raccoon plushie on Lallemant’s bed and lobs it at her partner, hitting her in the head.

“Ow!”

“Lucille, there’s something seriously wrong. The memory’s not erasing like it’s supposed to,” Chloé says urgently. This gets Lucille’s attention and she joins Chloé at the makeshift workstation. 

“This is why Renaud should be here,” Lucille says condescendingly, and Chloé bristles. 

“I can do this Lucille. Dr. Renaud clearly thinks so, too, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. It’s not my fault that his brain’s going haywire.”

Lucille glances at the screen again, squints. “It’s not going haywire. This happened with his ex too, the one he’s trying to erase. Don’t know why, but we figured it out in the end.”

Against her better judgement, Chloé sighs and looks to the boy laying on the bed. “That’s kind of sweet, isn’t it? That they both tried to hold on to one another?”

Lucille looks at her like she’s insane. “That’s hardly what it means. Some brains are just wired differently than others, that’s all. Renaud refuses to perform the procedure unless the subjects are one hundred percent certain they want to forget, there’s no way they were ‘holding on’ to each other. Besides, his ex definitely has no regrets now.”

“How would you know that?” Chloé scoffs, still preferring her theory. 

Lucille raises her eyebrows and glances sharply to her phone. Chloé gasps. “Lucille! That’s— that’s got to be unethical on so many levels! You helped Renaud  _ erase his memory _ !”

“You haven’t seen how hot he is,” Lucille says with a shrug. 

“Hot or not…” There’s no rules expressly forbidding it, but Chloé was under the assumption that there didn’t need to be, because anyone with any sense would never dare to go there, take advantage of someone like that. Something else dawns on Chloé. 

“You said… you said you know him by heart. And you do, because you have all the memories he doesn’t. You know what made him fall in love with Lallemant and what made him want to forget. And now— and now you know Lallemant’s side of it all too. Lucille I can’t believe you!” 

Lucille looks at her pityingly, like  _ she’s _ the one in the wrong, somehow. “I forget how young you are. That’s how the world works, Chlo, we’re all just taking advantages where we find them. I have the chance to fix all the mistakes these two made, to make Eliott  _ happy _ , and to make myself happy. Why would that be a bad thing?”

“Because it’s not  _ you _ , Lucille. It’s him.” She gestures to Lallemant on the bed. “He’s falling back in love with the person he wanted to erase from his memory, but it’ll never be the same because it’s not  _ him _ . This isn’t going to end well.”

“That’s what you don’t understand, my darling!” Lucille laughs loudly. “It isn’t going to end! I know how to make sure that never happens.”

Chloé sighs, shaking her head. “For his sake I hope you’re right…”

“Now can we get back to work?” Lucille asks, as if she’d been paying any attention before. Still, she’s right. Lallemant’s brain map is still going haywire and refuses to erase this particular memory, so she lets Lucille take charge, humming as she works like this is the most fun she’s ever had. 

Chloé feels a bit sick to her stomach, but she tries to swallow it down. She’d decided not to go to university because she’d found out about Lacuna and thought Dr. Renaud was a genius, and maybe he still is, but now that she’s wrapped up in the thick of it, she wonders if she can handle the moral implications of what they’re doing. 

Lucille taps a few more keys and suddenly everything is normal again. “See? Told you it was nothing to worry about.”

Funny, a bit of trouble with the process is the least of Chloé’s worries now. 

January 10, 2020

Lucas knows immediately this time that he’s in a memory. It’s like he’s Dorothy in Oz, and the curtain has just been pulled back to reveal the wizard. And he knows that what he tried to do didn’t work, because Eliott is here just as he was in the last memory, acting out a script he’s already lived once like he’s living it for the first time again.

He’s singing to Lucas, the night of their housewarming party, and Lucas feels himself tearing up despite it all. They’re going to make him forget this too. Why did he do this? Why did he think this was a good idea? No amount of heartbreak is worth this.

Eliott is playing the guitar and singing the song Lucas had listened to when he’d thought things were over between them, but he’d wanted Eliott to know that he was still there, that he’d ‘leave a light on’, in a sense, if he needed it. When did that instinct go away? To protect and love each other despite what they might be going through? Did it go away at all, or did they both just get better at hiding it? 

He lets Eliott finish the song, because he’d live this memory a million times if he could, and then he whisks Eliott away, leaving the apparitions of their friends behind and taking the Paris streets stride by stride. Eliott is yelling concerns, confused by what Lucas is doing, but Lucas knows they have to get as far away as possible, otherwise they’ll be erased again and again.

Eliott has stopped questioning him, and he allows Lucas to pull him along, but his pace is slower, and Lucas knows he’s trying to get them to stop so Lucas has to properly explain himself. He figures it’s better to do it now than later, so he stops abruptly, sliding his hand from Eliott’s forearm to lace their fingers together. The ease with which they align hurts Lucas in the depths of his heart, but he tries not to pay too much attention to it. 

“This is going to sound crazy but we need to run away so I don’t forget you,” Lucas says, and Eliott stares at him blankly, which makes sense. He continues, “Long story short, next February we get into a fight that I think was a breakup, and then you erase me from your memories, so I decide to do the same, but along the process I realize that I don’t want to erase you, because there was too much good to want to forget, but I don’t exactly know how this process works, so right now my plan of action is to just run away with you so the memory people can’t find us. Questions?” 

Eliott opens his mouth, then closes it, blinking slowly. “This… is a memory?”

“Yes.”

“And we’re trying to stop the… memory people… from erasing us?’

“Yes.”

Eliott’s fingers tighten around his. “Ok.”

“Ok?” The shock is probably very evident on Lucas’ face, given the way Eliott laughs. 

“I mean, it sounds batshit crazy, but it’s  _ just _ crazy enough that I don’t think you’d make it up so, I believe you,” Eliott says, like it’s that simple.

“I’m so sorry I let you walk out,” Lucas says, because it’s really the only regret he’s ever had. Even if he’ll probably forget it when he wakes from this strange trance, he thinks he’ll always know, in his heart, that he let the love of his life walk away, and then he practically locked him out too.

At this, Eliott falters. “I— I walked out?”

Lucas looks away. “It was my fault. Well, both of our faults, I guess. But you walked away and I let you, and then I told you to never come back.”

Eliott looks every bit as broken as Lucas feels on the inside. “How did we end up there? How did we let ourselves end up there?”

“I don’t know,” Lucas admits, “And really we weren’t unhappy. It was just a series of things, like dominoes, that added up slowly but surely until we reached a breaking point. And I think we were both too broken on the inside to find any way to repair it, so we just let it all slip away.”

“I’m sorry,” Eliott whispers, “I wanted you to be my forever.”

_ I wanted that too _ . Lucas doesn’t dare say it out loud, because he still doesn’t want to live in a word where that can’t happen. Maybe this is all a terrible nightmare and he’ll awaken in Eliott’s arms, and they’ll promise to love each other until the end of their days. 

But it’s not. Eliott’s right, this is too crazy for him to come up with, he doesn’t have that much creativity. Of the two of them, Eliott was the dreamer, the storyteller. Lucas sees facts and reason, and Eliott sees beauty and ideals. It worked for them. Though, considering where they are now, maybe it didn’t work as well as they thought.

“So… where do we go now? Do you think we can stop them from erasing me?” Eliott asks, and his voice is soft and sweet. It’s a sound that Lucas has missed dearly.

“We can try,” he responds. 

Eliott grabs his hand and holds it tightly. “Well, come on then, no time to waste.”

They run, and run, and run. So fast that Lucas almost forgets it’s a memory, it feels so real. How is it that he can make new memories inside of his mind, only to forget them all anyway? The memories of the future, the ones tinted orange, they’re already disappearing from his current consciousness. He remembers the breakup, and he remembers little fights, and he remembers breakfast in bed, or staying up all night watching the stars, but Eliott’s face is blurry in those memories, and some others aren’t there at all. Lucas knows they did something over the holidays, but what did they do? When did Eliott get that orange jacket and why did he stop wearing his red one? When did they last say they loved one another? 

They make it to the metro before science catches up to them. Lucas really thought they’d gotten away this time. But the metro’s empty, and it wasn’t just a second ago. The lights are dark, almost like a void, and Lucas knows that everything’s about to start dissolving soon. 

He braces his hands on either side of Eliott’s face. 

“Remember this, ok?” he pleads. “In the next memory, remember what I told you, so we can run again, somewhere they won’t find us. Please, remember me.”

Eliott’s eyes implore his as he nods. “I’ll never forget you again, ok?”

Lucas blinks away a few tears and pulls Eliott into him, kissing him so hard it’s almost bruising. He feels like such an idiot, but he isn’t totally convinced that he can’t stop this. Mind over matter, right? Their love has to be more powerful than some experimental neuro procedure. 

(Ok, maybe that seems like a stretch, but it’s worth hoping.)

Eliott kisses him back and it feels like the first time. The void is closing in on them, but Lucas only holds onto Eliott tighter. When it takes him again, the taste of Eliott still lingers on his lips. 

December 31, 2019

Lucas isn’t expecting the flashing lights, and they’re a shock when they hit, disorienting him in space. Eliott’s in front of him, shirt unbuttoned about two buttons too low for a casual gathering, but this is New Year’s Eve, and Lucas remembers how horny they both were that night, so he lets it slide. Plus, he loves looking at the tattoo on Eliott’s chest. 

Eliott had gotten a fair number of tattoos in the time that they were together, so he knows what those ones mean, but he just never really got around to asking about the others. He’d assumed they had all the time in the world, that it wasn’t this precarious thing slipping through his fingers. Now he’ll probably never know, because he doesn’t want memory Eliott to tell him. He’s honestly not even sure if memory Eliott would know, since Lucas doesn’t himself.

It’s a few minutes to midnight, and Lucas registers it as a few minutes to the beginning of the end. That might sound dramatic, but it’s partially true. In all fairness, they worked through a majority of their issues the summer after he graduated, and things were smooth sailing for a while, but, like clockwork, winter came again, and with it the loss of the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

His nails dig into his palms sharply when he thinks about it, because even though he’s only very recently lived and re-lived it, all he can think about is how he shouldn’t have sent that fucking text. Eliott would probably still remember him, at the very least, if he hadn’t. 

This version of Eliott crashes into him, kissing him hard and deep, and Lucas thinks he’s the only one who’s remembered again, but then Eliott pulls away and leans down to whisper in his ear. 

“Because we were interrupted so rudely.”

And maybe Lucas should take that as another excuse to start running, go somewhere the memory doctors can’t find him, but instead he smiles wider than he has since Eliott left and he wraps his arms around Eliott tightly, crushing their bodies together. Because he remembers. Eliott remembers. And maybe it’s only because this is Lucas’ brain, and if Lucas wants him to remember, he will, but that doesn’t matter. They’re in this together now. 

“Told you I’d remember, didn’t I?” Eliott asks, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from Lucas’ eyes. The music is still blaring so loudly that Lucas can’t really hear anything aside from the beating of his heart, but somehow Eliott’s words still ring loud and clear. 

Eliott glances at their friends, dancing wildly. “Should we get out of here, then?”

Lucas follows his gaze, remembering how happy they all were this night. It’s the last time that he can think of where every one of them hadn’t a care in the world. Well, he supposes that’s about to end for Arthur, but they still have a minute or two before anything bad happens. 

“If you remember me now, you’ll remember me in the next one too,” Lucas reasons, “Let’s stay here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Eliott nods, leaning forward to knock their foreheads together. “Whatever you say. I trust you.”

_ I didn’t trust you enough _ , Lucas thinks, but doesn’t say. Instead, he says, “I trust you too.”

And then Daphné is grabbing the both of them, drawing them into the group, and Yann shimmies on him, and Eliott grabs Emma’s hand to twirl her, and it’s easy for Lucas to pretend this isn’t a memory, that this is just another day, and tomorrow will be a new year, and he gets a chance to redo it all, but better this time. If he wakes up in Eliott’s bed tomorrow and all of this was just a bad dream, he’ll do better, be better. He’ll work on his issues, work on his communication, and they’ll be ok. They’ll be ok.

Lucas is pulled into a huddle as the clock hits ten seconds to midnight, Basile’s arm tight around him on one side, Eliott right across from him, squished between Yann and Sofiane. There’s a spark in his eyes, and Lucas has a feeling that it’s reflected in his own eyes, and it’s like all the words they haven’t said are out there in the open. Lucas can  _ feel _ the love radiating off Eliott, which shouldn’t be possible, if this is all just happening in his head. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself to wake up.

Beside him, his friends scream, “FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE!”

_ Wake up, Lucas, wake up _ . 

December 28, 2019

Lucas wakes up, in his apartment with Eliott, and Eliott is still sleeping beside him. His first thought is that his nightmare is over, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Then his eyes catch on the few boxes piled by the door, and he rolls over to check his phone for the date. It’s December 28th, the day after they moved into their new apartment. 

It’s not a nightmare, it’s all real. 

He wants to throw his phone at the wall, but he doesn’t want to wake Eliott up. Instead he stares at the ceiling, and, as much as he wills them not to, the tears come. They come hard and hot against his cheeks, and soon he’s sobbing openly. 

Eliott wakes up with a start, eyes filled with concern. 

“Lucas what— what happened?” he asks blearily. Lucas misses how Eliott sounds in the mornings. 

“I thought it was a nightmare, that I would wake up and you’d be here beside me like you are now but it wouldn’t be the past. I thought that maybe I wasn’t stupid enough to go through with this and I thought maybe there was a chance that we were still in love,” Lucas says, words broken up by heaving sobs. He curls onto his side in the fetal position and Eliott is there to hold him, to catch him. 

“I’m sorry,” Eliott says.

Lucas sniffles, burying his head into Eliott’s chest. “It’s not your fault. Well— it partially is, but not  _ you _ , the actual you.”

Eliott doesn’t say anything further, simply letting Lucas soak up his warmth, find his home. He runs a hand through Lucas’ hair gently, kissing the top of his head, and it speaks so much louder than any words he could try to find anyway. They lay there for who knows how long, and Lucas wonders why it isn’t being erased yet, but he’s not willing to jinx it. Slowly, his sobs turn into deep breaths, and his tears dry on his cheeks. Eliott holds him closer still. 

“I love you,” Eliott says. The silence stretches out for another moment. Then, “I wish we had more time.”

Lucas closes his eyes. “In another universe we do.” 

February 16, 2021

It’s sometime in the middle of the night but Lucas isn’t tired. He’s tracing circles on Eliott’s bare chest, wondering how he got so lucky. There’s a tattoo there, right above Eliott’s heart, and Lucas brushes his fingers against it gently. Eliott follows his gaze. 

“Bet you didn’t know you were getting into bed with a bad boy, huh?” Eliott asks, and Lucas is so endeared that he blushes from head to toe. They didn’t have sex or anything, Lucas doesn’t know if he’d be ready for that after just kissing a guy for the first time, but they’re both just in their briefs, legs tangled together like puzzle pieces locking into place. 

“Bad boy? This is a cursive tattoo that says ‘life’,” Lucas giggles, taking in Eliott’s affronted facial expression. “Doesn’t get more romantic than that.”

Eliott sighs, fingers on the back of Lucas’ neck. “You’ve caught me, I’m a secret romantic.”

Lucas raises his eyebrows, folding his elbow and resting his head on Eliott’s chest. “I’m not sure it’s much of a secret.”

There’s a hint of a smile on Eliott’s face, and Lucas wants to stare at it forever. He wants to stare at Eliott forever. “What does it mean?” he asks, tracing the tattoo.

Eliott squirms a bit uncomfortably, and Lucas immediately retracts his statement. “Sorry, you don’t have to tell me—”

“No, it’s ok. It’s pretty self explanatory. Just a reminder that life is worth living, I guess, because there was a time I really didn’t believe it.” He’s looking away from Lucas, but Lucas brings their faces back together.

“I’m sorry that’s something you’ve been through,” he says. He’s thinking about his mom, how she’s likely been in that same place too. 

“Well, I’m still here, aren’t I? If I made it out of those thoughts before, I can do it again,” Eliott says confidently, and Lucas smiles. 

After that, they drift back into more meaningless conversation, and they end up circling back to Lucas’ sexuality. 

“So you’re gay?” Eliott has asked, and Lucas nods. He feels weirdly comfortable saying it. Maybe it’s the Eliott effect, or the fact that he’s just spent hours making out with a guy.

“Yeah. I’m not really out to anyone yet, though,” he clarifies, a bit embarrassed, but Eliott doesn’t say anything about it. He looks up at Eliott again. “Are you— sorry if this is a weird question, but, um, are you gay, then, or bi?” 

He remembers Eliott saying something about an ex-girlfriend, but Lucas has had one of those too. It doesn’t always mean what it looks like it does. 

“Pansexual,” Eliott admits, “You know what that is?”

Vaguely. He figures he can ask more about it later if he needs to. Basically, for the moment, it just lets him know that Eliott is attracted to more than one gender. A strange part of him wants to be insecure about it, but an even bigger part of him is telling him that that’s ridiculous. Just because Eliott has more options of people to fall in love with, doesn’t mean he’s more likely to cheat, or whatever. 

“You’re getting that cute little crinkle between your eyebrows again,” Eliott says, and he sounds fond. “You’re wondering if I’m a player, aren’t you, because I like people no matter how they identify?”

“No,” Lucas says, because he wasn’t, really, but it would be good information to know from anyone. 

“I’m not,” Eliott reassures him. “I actually… and please don’t take this the wrong way, I know how crazy it sounds, but I think I had a girlfriend yesterday.”

Lucas shifts himself higher onto Eliott’s chest. “I know. Annie, you said, right?”

Eliott shakes his head. “Not her. I didn’t bring it up, because I didn’t want to freak you out or drive you away, but after I talked to Annie, and she told me we hadn’t dated in years, this girl shows up at my work— a place I didn’t even know I worked until I read it in my phone, oddly enough— and it’s clear to me that she’s interested in me, but she’s acting like I’m also interested in her. And she knows all these things about me, so I figure we must be in some sort of relationship, but I’m too afraid to ask and sound crazier than I already am… I don’t know, but she kissed me when she left, so that pretty much answered that question. But the more we hung out, the more we were together, I just didn’t feel a thing for her. I tried to, but it wasn’t there, it felt inauthentic. And I just couldn’t take it anymore, I felt like I was going insane, like maybe this was a part of my mental illness, and I just wasn’t capable of love. So I just… left her. It was a cowardly move, but I snuck out, and I left her a note saying we couldn’t be together anymore, and in the morning I went to the petite ceinture to clear my head. Then I met you, and I felt everything again. You woke me up, Lucas.”

Lucas tries to process everything Eliott’s saying, and Eliott is right, it does sound a bit crazy, and Lucas can tell there’s some things Eliott is withholding, but in all truth, he believes him. He doesn’t know what that says about him. It makes him stupid, probably. 

“I feel like you woke me up too,” Lucas admits, “Everything in my life just feels like one big pale blob, but then there you were, shining bright.”

Eliott smiles at this, even as his eyes darken infinitesimally. Lucas wonders why this small change is so familiar to him. “I mostly just wish I could remember why I was with her in the first place, it might help me understand why things felt so wrong, you know?”

Oddly enough, Lucas does know. Not in the same way of course, but there’s something empty about his mind that makes it so easy to comprehend what Eliott is saying. 

“Maybe you have the  _ Memento _ disease,” Lucas suggests.

Eliott’s eyebrows raise, and the dark look is gone from his eyes. “ _ Memento _ ? A film buff, are you? Most people wouldn’t know what that movie is, much less how incredible it is.”

Lucas thinks about it, and he actually isn’t sure how he knows the movie. He doesn’t remember seeing it, but there it is in his brain. Remember Sammy Jenkis. If only he could remember his own life.

“Not really,” he says, shrugging, “I’m usually more into stupid actions movies where a Chris or three wears tight fighting suits.”

Eliott wrinkles his nose. “Not Chris Pratt though?”

Lucas scoffs in offense. “Please, do you think I have  _ no  _ taste at all? Of course not Chris Pratt. Pine is the best Chris, hands down.”

Eliott leans in and kisses him hard. It makes Lucas’ brain dizzy. When they break apart, Lucas laughs weakly. “What was that for?”

“For you being so smart. Chris Pine  _ is _ the best Chris, but no one ever agrees with me.”

“They just don’t have what we have, huh?” Lucas smirks, feeling a blush rise to his cheeks. 

Eliott’s eyes burn into his, cutting deep into his soul. “No one ever could,” Eliott says softly, and Lucas doesn’t think they’re talking about movie stars anymore. They both shift closer in bed, and Eliott’s arm comes to wrap around his waist. It fits there, just like their legs, their mouths, their hands. It sends a shiver down Lucas’ spine and he places a hand on the side of Eliott’s face. 

“I’m really glad I met you, Eliott,” he says. 

“I’m really glad I met you too.”

May 19, 2019

Lucas remembers this day, and he laughs to himself when he opens his eyes. He can hear Charles and Manon yelling in the other room and he shakes his head. If there’s one thing that knowing the future is good for, it’s knowing that Manon and Charles have finally called it quits for good. He never deserved her. 

Lucas knows that he and Eliott are supposed to be arguing too, because Eliott lied to him about Idriss or whatever, but it seems so inconsequential considering everything that he doesn’t have the energy to even try to follow his script. Instead he lays down on his bed, smiling when Eliott lays next to him. 

“You’re supposed to be mad at me right now,” Eliott says with a smirk. 

Lucas laughs and turns his head to meet Eliott’s gaze. “Seems kind of pointless now, huh?”

Eliott heaves a big sigh and turns his face upward to the ceiling, propping his arms behind his head. “Yeah.”

Lucas sighs in an equal fashion, mimicking Eliott’s position. “There must be something I haven’t tried.”

“Have you tried waking up?” Eliott asks. It’s a simple question, but Lucas considers it. He willed everything to be a dream, but he hasn’t actively tried waking up. He’s a bit worried about brain damage if he tries, but then again this whole process is brain damage in itself, so what does he have to lose?

But then there’s another problem.

“How would I even go about waking up? I feel awake right now.” Lucas turns his head to see Eliott biting his cheek in concentration. 

“Maybe… close your eyes, and then just open them real wide?” Eliott suggests, sounding unsure of himself. 

Lucas can’t help but giggle. “Just open my eyes real wide?” he confirms, and Eliott shoves him without any real force. 

“Shut up! It was just a suggestion.” Eliott pouts at him and Lucas kisses the expression off his face without thinking twice. Fuck, he really doesn’t want to live in a world where kissing Eliott isn’t second nature to him. 

He settles back down onto the bed, trying to get more comfortable. “Ok, fine, I’ll try it. It’s your job to make sure I don’t— I don’t know— explode or something?”

Eliott blinks with a surprised laugh. “Is that something you’re worried about?”

“I don’t know! I don’t even know how they’re doing this!” If he did know, he would have stopped it by now. “It is weird they haven’t stopped this memory yet, actually.”

The last few had been coming and going faster, but this one has actually stayed still long enough for them both to catch their bearings. Eliott shrugs, clueless as Lucas is. Lucas takes a deep breath in and out.

“Ok, I’m going to try.” 

Eliott nods and watches as Lucas closes his eyes, trying to drown out the fact that he’s technically already asleep. He focuses on what it feels like to wake up, tries to focus on anything other than the memory he’s in right now. He feels himself sinking into a deeper subconscious, and he rides that wave, slipping away from this room, from Eliott, from everything.

He opens his eyes.

February 14, 2021

“Luci, what are you doing?” Chloé asks. Since that one weird incident, things have been sailing relatively smoothly, and Chloé was feeling more confident in her work again. Lucille had just been texting the whole time, and no matter how gross it felt to Chloé, Lucille was clearly having the time of her life. 

Lucille was at the door now, with her jacket. “I’m going to meet Eliott. He just can’t keep his hands off me, even for a night. Says he can’t sleep without me beside him.”

“He says that, or you say that and pretend he’s the one asking?” Chloé grumbles to herself. She likes Lucille, and they’ve honestly never had any problems before, but this just seems so out of line that Chloé doesn’t know if she should do something or not.

Lucille rolls her eyes. “Come on, I believe in you! One blip is still a success, ok? If you finish this on your own, I’m sure Renaud won’t assign me to you as a babysitter next time.”

The thought does appeal to Chloé, if she’s being honest. She just wants to be taken seriously. She knows that she’s young and new at this, but she’s studied under Renaud harder than she’s ever studied anything in her life, and she knows that this is her calling. At least, she hopes it is. 

“I’ll check everything one more time before I go, if it makes you feel better?” Lucille offers, and as much as Chloé wants to say she can handle it on her own, she wants to stall Lucille as much as possible. 

“It would, thanks,” she agrees, rolling her chair away from the table she has her things set up at. Lucille’s heels click on the ground as she walks over, and Chloé spares a glance at the subject. She screams, just as the computer does the same. 

Even Lucille is taken aback, and she isn’t looking at what Chloé is looking at. 

“What the hell?” Lucille says to herself, furrowing her brows at the computer. Chloé is at a loss for words, mouth frozen wide open. 

Februmay 1419, ????

Shit. It worked. 

Lucas can’t move his body, which is not ideal, but his eyes are open, and he’s staring at the ceiling of an apartment that looks unfamiliar, but that’s probably just the memory loss talking. He’s stunned that he can’t remember anything past the fight he’s supposed to be taking part in presently, but he supposes that’s how all of this is supposed to work, isn’t it? 

He hears a startled scream and a computer whirring wildly, which he thinks must be a good sign. He just has to figure out how to wake himself up completely. 

From his position, he can’t see anyone but there are two voices talking, and they both sound female. One of them sounds weirdly familiar, but he can’t totally place it. Maybe if he was more aware, it would be obvious. 

February 14, 2021

“Lucille! Lucille, he's awake!” Chloé says, or shouts, rather, when she finally finds her voice. This gets Lucille’s attention immediately, and she stops her work on the computer.

“He’s  _ what?  _ Why didn’t you lead with that Chloé!” Lucille shrieks, running over to Lallemant. She’s pale as paper, and her hands are shaking. Chloé assumes that’s not a good sign.

“I’m calling Renaud,” Chloé says uncertainly, pulling out her phone, her own fingers shaking as she does.

“No!” Lucille shouts, and Chloé nearly drops her phone. “We can fix this, if we tell Renaud, he’ll never trust us again. Maybe this is just something Lallemant does, maybe he’s some weird ass sleepwalker or something and he just forgot to mention it.”

That doesn’t seem very likely to Chloé, but she can’t think of another way to excuse it. Lucille is now reaching down and prodding Lallemant’s face, trying to force his eyes shut.

“I don’t think that’s—”

????????

“—going to work!” 

Lucas feels it when this random woman starts poking his face, forcing his eyes shut. He can’t do anything about it, because his stupid body won’t listen to his stupid brain, but he feels it happening. And he sees her face above him, full of mirth and confusion. He recognizes her, actually, from before the procedure. She’s the one who took his things. He doesn’t actually know what they do with people’s belongings, but maybe if he ends up getting out of this he’ll ask her for them back. 

He can’t see the other girl, but she sounds panicked. He doesn’t blame her, he’d probably be doing the same, but he hopes for his own sake that she’s stupid enough that he’ll get away with whatever it is he’s trying to get away with. Oddly, she’s the one with the familiar voice, even though he knows the woman who is still poking his face as he opens his eyes again and again. He needs to figure out how to move his body.

Both of the women are frantic, and rightfully so, Lucas thinks, but he’s so focused on his goal that he tries to tune them out.

“What’s he doing?” the familiar sounding woman asks.

“Nothing! Just lying here with his eyes open!” the other one answers, jabbing his face again. 

Lucas hears the sound of footsteps and assumes the other woman is pacing. “Maybe you’re right? Some people open their eyes when they sleep sometimes, like sleepwalkers, you know? But they’re still asleep. Everything could be totally normal.”

The woman above Lucas sighs. “Maybe read his—”

February 14, 2021

“—brain map? Shouldn’t that tell you if he’s asleep or not?” Lucille asks from across the room. 

Right, Chloé thinks to herself, the brain map. It lights up when the subjects are in different states of consciousness. She walks rapidly back to the desk, clicks around on the computer until she finds what she’s looking for. And… fuck.

“He’s definitely awake Lucille!” she shrieks.

“Not fully! He’s still not moving at all!” Lucille shouts back, like that’s at all helpful. “Just tranq him!”

“Lucille!” The last thing Chloé wants to do is  _ tranquilize _ her first subject. None of this should be happening, why can’t she just have a mundane first time performing the procedure? 

Lucille shrugs like it’s the only obvious solution. “It’s what you’re supposed to do. Did Renaud not tell you that?”

“No!” Chloé yells again, though she assumes that the reasoning has more to do with the fact that nothing was expected to go wrong than him leaving out the information intentionally. Lucille steps away from Lallemant long enough to mumble something about having to do everything herself, then goes to their kit, grabs a syringe, and before Chloé can even say a word, she stabs it into Lallemant’s arm. 

“Lucille…”

Lucille rolls her eyes. “Relax, girl, this kind of thing is procedure.”

“It is?” Why didn’t anyone warn her then?

“Well…” Lucille bites her bottom lip. “Not  _ exactly _ , but I’m sure this is exactly what Renaud would have done.”

Chloé isn’t so sure, but she supposes it’s already too late to argue. Lucille waits a minute by Lallemant, and Chloé watches from across the room as his eyes droop and his heart rate settles on her screen. The minute everything seems to be back to normal, Lucille picks up her purse and walks to the door.

“Wait! Where are you going?” Chloé asks frantically.

“To meet Eliott, remember?” Lucille stands unimpressed with a hand on her hip. 

Chloé scoffs in disbelief. “Luci, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. What if something else goes wrong?”

“Chlo, that was enough tranquilizer to knock him out for the next month, it’ll be fine,” Lucille sighs, and Chloé’s eyes bug wide again.  
“It was _what?_ ”

“Relax! I’m joking! It was just enough to ensure no further problems. Just call me if you need anything else,” Lucille offers, then seems to think better of it. “Or, actually, don’t. Eliott and I would rather not be interrupted, you know.”

She giggles high and girlishly, and Chloé barely contains her eyeroll. “I still think you’re taking advantage of him,” she mumbles under her breath. 

Lucille looks up. “Did you say something?”

Chloé forces a smile, resigned to the fact that she won’t be able to convince Lucille to stay. “Nope.”

“Alright, I’m off then.” She looks at Chloé’s apprehensive face and sighs. “It’ll be fine, I promise. You’ve got this, girl.”

And, just like that, she’s gone, and Chloé is alone at the computer, praying to any god that will listen that nothing else goes wrong.

March 28, 2019

Lucas and Eliott are at the bus stop, and Eliott is wearing Lucas’ romance hoodie, and Lucas is crying. 

It didn’t work. 

Eliott seems to realize that where they are currently is a testament to that fact and he just pulls Lucas close, holding him like the world’s going to end. 

“I’m sorry,” Lucas says with a sniffle. “I almost did it, too. I was awake, I could hear them and everything, but then… everything just faded, and here we are.”

Eliott pulls back and places his hands on either side of Lucas’ face. “Hey, it’s not your fault, ok? If it’s anyone's fault, it’s mine. I erased you, and I don’t blame you for wanting the same.”

“But I  _ don’t _ want the same. I convinced myself I did, because it just hurt so bad, but I don’t want to forget.” The worst part is that he knows he already has forgotten so much. He knows that after this day he goes to the park and Eliott surprises him there, but he can’t remember anything past that, aside from the fact that he and Eliott broke up, and Eliott erased him. He wonders when he’ll forget that too. 

“I wish there was something I could do,” Eliott says hopelessly, drying Lucas’ tears as they fall. Lucas loses himself in his thoughts, thinking of  _ anything _ he hasn’t tried yet. Then, it hits him.

He pulls away from Eliott so quickly that they’re both caught off guard, and he can taste the salt of his tears as he smiles wide and hopeful. “I have one last idea.”

Eliott raises his eyebrows. “I’m listening.”

“What if I take you somewhere you aren’t meant to be? This is my own brain, I’m sure I can find a way to do it…” he trails off, thinking of how, exactly, to make it happen.

Eliott bites his lip. “Isn’t that what you tried before?”

Lucas shakes his head. “Not exactly. I tried to carve new pathways in my existing memories with you, but that didn’t work because no matter what happened, we were always meant to exist in that time and place together, you know?”

“Ok…”

“So,” Lucas continues, “I need to take you somewhere you never existed, at least not to me.”

“Like what? Your childhood?” Eliott asks incredulously, and yes, that is  _ exactly _ what Lucas is thinking. It’s clear from Eliott’s surprised expression that he sees the answer written on Lucas’ face. “Wait, seriously?”

“It’s our only chance, I think,” Lucas says with a shrug, worried Eliott will turn him down. Instead, Eliott locks their hands together and squares his shoulders. 

“Well, take it away then. Let’s do this thing.”

It takes Lucas a minute, or many minutes, depending on how time works in this weird mindscape, but suddenly he and Eliott are in his childhood home, his bedroom in particular, and he feels a bit like crying for an entirely different reason. Eliott must sense that something is off, because he rubs soothing circles on the back of Lucas’ hand with his thumb. 

Lucas feels so small here, and part of him is relieved, because he wants nothing more than to actually go back in time, to when things didn’t hurt and he thought that love was forever, but the bigger part of him knows that he could never go back, not really. 

There’s a knock on the bedroom door, and Lucas and Eliott share an alarmed glance. 

“Lu? Baby, are you awake?” a voice comes from the other side of the door, and it’s Lucas’ mom. It’s the only voice he knows better than Eliott’s, even if he hasn’t heard it in quite some time. 

“Yes,” he says, but it sounds higher than his normal tone of voice. He looks down and he’s wearing his old favorite spiderman pajamas. Those shouldn’t fit him anymore.

The door starts to open and Eliott scoots awkwardly to the end of the bed. Weirdly, Lucas’ mom doesn’t look surprised to see him there. Maybe Lucas’ brain is just filling in some blanks for him.

His mom smiles warmly at Eliott. “Thanks for watching him while we were out.”

Eliott looks alarmed. “Um, yeah… no problem.”

Another voice comes from the end of the hall, words indecipherable. Lucas’ mom’s smile fractures slightly, and she steels her jaw. “Will you wait here with him just one moment? I’ll be right back.”

Eliott nods stiffly as Lucas’ mom gently shuts the door behind her. He glances at Lucas with raised eyebrows, then becomes more alarmed. 

Lucas is curled up on his bed, covers pulled up to his chin, eyes wide and doe like. “Where did mama go?” he asks. 

“Lucas, what the fuck?” Eliott hisses, glancing at the door.

Lucas doesn’t like that his mom isn’t here with him. She’s supposed to sing him a song before bed. He starts to cry. “W-where’s m-mama,” he hiccups between sobs. 

“Shhhhh, Lu, shhhhh.” Eliott scoots back over to him, runs a hand through his hair. “It’s ok. You’re not actually a child, your brain just thinks you are, because we’re in a childhood memory.”

Lucas continues to cry, but he likes the way Eliott is running a hand through his hair. It feels nice. “She’s supposed to sing me a song,” Lucas says, “I can’t go to sleep without a lullaby.”

Eliott’s hand stills momentarily, then he picks right back up. “Um… ok. Would you like me to sing to you instead?”

Lucas thinks about it for a minute. He really wants his mama to sing to him, but he hears the voices rising outside his door and realizes that probably won’t happen. He sighs, then nods at Eliott. “Yes, please.”

“Would you like me to lie down with you?” Eliott asks, his voice sweet and gentle as a summer sunrise. 

“Yes, please.”

Eliott’s body heat encompasses him immediately as he slides under the covers next to Lucas. It grounds him, makes him feel more like himself. Slowly, slowly, he starts to remember why they are where they are, and that whatever fight his mother and father are having doesn’t actually matter because eventually it all went to shit anyway, but what does matter is Eliott here, now. And sure, now he doesn’t feel like he’s five years old anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to let Eliott sing to him. Eliott starts humming, a little bit under his breath, and Lucas leans into him. 

“Brrrrr skaaaa, brrr skaaaa, boom skrrr…” Eliott sings, and Lucas blinks up at him in disbelief. 

He giggles, he can’t help it. “Are you… trying to sing dubstep to me?”

Eliott blushes. “Shut up.”

Lucas’ giggle turns into a loud, uproarious laugh that has tears falling from his eyes. “Oh my god, oh my god! I can’t believe—” he cuts himself off, laughing too hard to continue. 

“Lucas!” Eliott buries his face into the crook of Lucas’ neck, right where he belongs, and the laughs settle in Lucas’ chest. 

“I love you so much,” Lucas says, “I love you endlessly.”

Eliott’s eyes sparkle with the light of a million stars, and they simply stare at each other. This time, Lucas thinks he might have done it. He might have escaped the memory wiping process. They’ve been in his childhood bedroom for quite some time now, after all, and Lucas can’t wait to wake up, because this time, he knows that he’ll remember Eliott, even if Eliott doesn’t remember him. He finds that he’s ok with that, welcomes it, even. They might not have had forever, but at least they had all those minutes together, too many to count, and at least Lucas will remember a fair amount of them. 

February 16, 2021

It’s the early morning, and Lucas’ legs are tangled with Eliott’s. Eliott’s watching him, while he sleeps, he knows this without opening his eyes. He can feel Eliott’s stare like it’s a part of him. 

“I know you’re awake,” Eliott whispers, his breath ruffling Lucas’ hair enough to make it tickle his forehead. He scrunches up his nose, and a moment later, feels a kiss pressed to the tip of it.

Lucas blinks his eyes open. “What was that for?”

Eliott shrugs as much as his current position wrapped around Lucas allows. “You.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, but he feels a warmth spreading from his chest to the rest of his body. If he’s being honest, he hadn’t expected Eliott to still be there when he woke up, no matter how deep of a connection he’d felt with him the night before. He’s used to people leaving. 

Eliott must sense the weight that has settled on Lucas’ mind, because he cups his face and furrows his brows. “What’s wrong?”

“Why are you still here?” Lucas asks before he can help himself. 

Eliott stiffens and pulls back a bit. “Sorry. I didn’t know you didn’t want—”

“No!” Lucas cuts him off urgently. “That’s not what I meant! I just meant why would you stay… for me?”

“I’m not sure I follow.” Eliott still looks hesitant, like he’s waiting for Lucas to drop one final blow.

Lucas tries to explain to the best of his ability. “You’re… you. So bright, and full of life… I’m just a stupid closeted gay boy that no one likes enough to stick around.”

“Hey, Lucas, that’s not true,” Eliott says gently, knocking their foreheads together. “Not for you, and not for me either. I’m not everything you think I am, I told you I’m bipolar, right?”

Lucas nods, and Eliott continues, “Well, there are times I’m so depressed I don’t leave my bed for a week, or I snap for no reason, forget to take my meds on purpose, and get mad at anyone who tries to help take care of me, even when I know that they mean well. And so on… I mean we’re all human, right? We all have our ups and downs.”

“I guess,” Lucas says, but he doesn’t really mean it. Sure, Eliott’s not perfect, but he’s not the type of person people can’t wait to get rid of. Lucas is. 

“Super convincing,” Eliott laughs, and Lucas is surprised once again by how easily Eliott can read him. 

Lucas shifts and tries to find a way to say what he’s thinking without sounding self pitying. He’s really not, is the thing. His dad left because he wasn’t good enough, and his mom left because he couldn’t be the son she needed. It was his fault, and he deserved it. 

“I’m just not the kind of person worth keeping around,” Lucas says eventually, “I’m never enough.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

Lucas shrugs. “It’s ok, really. I’ve made my peace with it. I just want to know sooner rather than later when you plan on leaving too. I’ve never had a real relationship before, and I’ve never had a one night stand or anything either, so I don’t know the etiquette.”

“I don’t plan on leaving.” Eliott sounds honest, and part of Lucas hates it, because that’s not how this script is supposed to go. 

“No one ever does,” he responds instead, even if that’s not always true. 

Eliott doesn’t let it go easily, though. “I’m serious, Lucas. I’m seriously into you, and I want to hold onto that as long as you let me. I know calling this a relationship might be jumping the gun a bit, but I’d like the opportunity to try. Take you out on real dates, call you my boyfriend, the whole deal.”

“Eliott…”

“Some people leave, sure, but other people will stay. Let me stay.” Eliott stares at him with that piercing gaze of his, and Lucas’ resolve crumbles. As much as he doesn’t want to be an idiot, he wants to believe Eliott. He’s never felt like this in his entire life, and call him naive, but he wants a chance at making this a real thing too.

“Ok,” he says, and Eliott’s face splits into the widest grin Lucas has ever seen. He crushes Lucas to his chest, kisses him all over his face. Lucas laughs brightly, a sound he’d almost forgotten he could make, in all honesty. He doesn’t know when the last time he laughed like that was. 

“Can I read what you wrote about me?” Eliott asks, and Lucas frowns. 

“What are you talking about?”

Eliott nods to his nightstand. “The notebook you were writing in when I met you.”

“What makes you think I wrote about you?” Lucas scoffs. 

“Well, why wouldn’t you?”

In all honesty, Lucas hadn’t written about Eliott. He hadn’t gotten that far. He would have, if Eliott hadn’t whisked him away, but then he wouldn’t be here, so he’s not too upset about it on the whole. 

“I wasn’t writing about you,” Lucas admits, “I was writing about parallel universes.”

“Yeah?”

Lucas nods. “Do you believe in them?”

“I do,” Eliott confirms. “And even if I didn’t, science doesn’t lie, they confirmed the multiverse theory sometime recently, didn’t they?”

“That they did.” Lucas raises his eyebrows. “Didn’t peg you as a science guy.”

Eliott laughs, shaking his head. “I’m not. Didn’t used to be, at least.” He shifts so they’re closer, once again. “How many Lucases and Eliotts do you think are laying exactly as we are, right now?”

“A lot,” Lucas answers.

“Not all of them?”

“No. Not yet. If I didn’t find you until now, some parallel Lucases can wait too,” he reasons, and Eliott laughs. 

“You’re evil.”

“Just a little bit.” He brushes a finger along Eliott’s jawline. “It’ll be worth the wait, though.”

“That it will.”

Lucas wants to kiss him, but they’re both just looking at each other right now, so openly, and he also doesn’t want this feeling to end. He can tell Eliott feels the same. 

A sharp ringing is what interrupts them, in the end, and Eliott reaches for his phone, groaning. “Apparently I have an early shift at the video store today, who knew.”

“I feel like you should know that,” Lucas teases, and Eliott swats him playfully, sitting up.

He pouts. “I don’t want to go.”

“You’re not gonna get an argument from me on that one,” Lucas says with a laugh. 

Eliott groans again, and then wraps himself around Lucas like a koala. “Come with me.”

“No! I think I have class, actually…” He should really check on that.

Eliott raises an eyebrow as he pokes his head up. “I feel like you should know that,” he mimics, and Lucas shoves him.

They come apart the same way they came together, with blushes and stares and layers of tension between them. Lucas knows this isn’t the end, Eliott has promised about a million and a half times he’s coming over later to make dinner for Lucas, but as Eliott stands on his doorstep, Lucas wishes that the bubble they were in last night and this morning could last forever. 

“I’ll see you later, ok?” Eliott confirms, and Lucas nods. He doesn’t trust himself to say anything, quite honestly. It’s stupid for him to be so upset that Eliott is leaving. Besides, he does have class, like he thought, and Yann is still blowing up his phone. 

Eliott takes a few steps, out the door and into the hallway. They’re slow steps, like he hasn’t really convinced himself that he wants to go just yet, and before Lucas can even consider closing the door he’s back, and he scoops Lucas’ face up in his hands, and they’re kissing deeply. Lucas grins into it, lost in the feeling. 

“Ok I’m actually going now,” Eliott says when he pulls away, but he’s pouting. 

“You do that,” Lucas says, and rises on his tiptoes to give Eliott another kiss. Eliott groans as he pulls away, clinging to Lucas’ sweatshirt. 

“I’ll miss you,” he says earnestly.

Lucas blushes from head to toe. “Yeah, yeah.” Then, more quietly, “Me too.”

Sunshine makes its way into the hallway as Eliott smiles again, so big so bright, and then he’s walking backwards, blowing Lucas a kiss, refusing to tear his eyes away. “Bye.” 

“Bye, lo—” Lucas cuts himself off harshly, slamming the door closed. What the fuck? He almost just said love you. To a guy he’s literally known for one night. The stranger thing is that it had been on the tip of his tongue the entire time they were together, and Lucas has never felt that way about anyone before. He honestly wasn’t sure he’d ever find love, and he probably still hasn’t, but there’s something so familiar about Eliott, like they were made to be in each other’s lives.

He stands in shock with his back up against the door for a second, then cracks it open again, peeking to see if Eliott found that exchange weird, but Eliott must have taken it as a sign to actually leave, because there’s no one there. 

The apartment door next to his opens up and out comes a woman he only knows from seeing her the morning beforehand, but she seems familiar with him like they know each other a bit more than he remembers. 

“Celebrating valentine’s day a bit late, are we?” she asks with a knowing smile, and Lucas coughs, flustered. She continues, “I thought your plans were nothing exciting?”

“You know Eliott?” he asks, confused. 

She laughs like he’s said something funny. “Of course. Can’t see him every day for over a year and not know him. Especially not that one. Pure sunshine.”

He agrees with her, but he doesn’t know why she’s saying it that way, like it’s an inside joke. He coughs again. “Right. Um, I should go get ready for class now.”

She nods. “Have a lovely day, Lucas. And tell your Eliott that I said hello, and to give me my sugar back when he gets the chance. Blueberry bacon muffins are a crime against nature, as far as I’m concerned, but the way he talks you’d think they were a gourmet delicacy.” She laughs, shaking her head fondly. 

“Uh, ok,” he agrees, and shuts the door, unsure what just happened. He wants to argue  _ he’s not  _ my  _ Eliott _ , but he’s also too confused by the whole exchange to even want to try to justify anything. Why would Eliott be borrowing her sugar? She must have him confused with someone else.

In a bit of a daze, whether it be lovestruck or otherwise, he’s not entirely sure, he goes back to his bedroom and finally checks his phone, seeing all the missed calls and texts from worried friends. He doesn’t look at any of them, but when Yann’s face pops up on his screen to call, he answers.

“Lucas? Thank fuck! Where have you been?” he demands.

“Busy…”

“I’m coming over, ok? We need to talk.”

Lucas checks the time. “I have class soon. I think.”

“Do I sound like I give a fuck?”

No, he doesn’t. “Ok, fine, see you soon,” Lucas says, flopping back down on his bed. He doesn’t know why Yann sounds so heated. 

“See you soon.” Yann hangs up, and Lucas drops the phone at his side, staring up at the ceiling. Despite all his confusion, and Yann’s harsh tone, he smiles. Maybe someday he’ll tell Eliott he loves him without hesitation when he leaves for work. 

February 14, 2021

It’s getting late, much later than Chloé was supposed to be here, but things are going haywire again. She’s tried everything, including tranquilizing Lallemant again, but it’s like he’s disappeared right off the brain map and taken his boyfriend with him. She can’t find a single way to bring him back to his memories to complete the process the way it’s supposed to be done. 

As a last resort, she calls Dr. Renaud. He picks up immediately and tells her he’s on his way, but she feels like shit anyway. This was supposed to be her time to prove that she could do it, that she was ready for this kind of responsibility. 

While she waits for Renaud she digs through Lucas’ cupboards, partly out of revenge, partly out of anxiety. She’s on her second box of crackers when she hears a buzz at the door.

Renaud looks exhausted, and he’s wearing what looks to be pajamas. Chloé realizes then that she’s never seen him out of his work clothes and lab coat, and she feels bad once again for pulling him from his work, but there were no other options.

“Where’s Lucille?” is the first thing that he asks, and Chloé fumbles for an explanation. She doesn’t want to get Lucille in trouble for leaving, and she also doesn’t think Renaud knows Lucille is seeing Eliott at the moment, one of their past patients.

“Family emergency,” she decides on.

Renaud looks skeptical, but thankfully he doesn’t push the subject further. He asks her to fill him in on everything that has happened, and she explains timidly, how his brain keeps wavering from the map, how he woke himself up, and what’s happening now, where she can’t find him or the person he’s trying to erase in any of his memories. His face grows more stern the more she speaks. 

“Why didn’t you call me earlier?” he demands.

“Lucille said—”

“Lucille doesn’t run this company, Jeanson, I do. You should have alerted me of this  _ immediately _ . I don’t need Mr. Lallemant here suing me when he wakes up with permanent brain damage!” His words are harsh and clipped, and Chloé feels tears building in her eyes. She’d only been trying to prove she could handle it all. 

She glances at Lallemant. “Will he— will he be ok?”

“Luckily for you, I’ve seen many of these anomalies in one other case. They perplexed me at the time, but now that I know what I’m doing, this should be a fairly simple process to get him back on track.” Renaud is barely speaking to her, mostly to himself, but she heaves a sigh of relief regardless. 

“What can I do?” she asks, blinking back her tears and squaring her shoulders. 

Renaud barely glances up, handing her a cell phone. “You can handle his social media. His passcode is 2027, just delete any posts of or with Eliott Demaury and hide any posts that have the two of them tagged together. Flag anything that could be ambiguously related to their relationship and I’ll check it once I’m done with this.”

It’s a simple, menial task, and she’s done it a million times. It’s the task that they assign to the newest interns. She knows exactly what to do, but the fact that Renaud feels the need to explain it all to her again puts a pit in her stomach. Nevertheless, she does as she’s told, opening up his phone and getting to work. 

She looks at Lallemant’s posts with his ex boyfriend and feels a shred of pity for him. The two of them look so happy in these photos, what went wrong? She can target memories through his brain map, but she’ll never know exactly what those memories actually are. Only he will, and his ex, but both of them have forgotten now. It’s a bit sad to think about, actually.

It doesn’t take too long to go through it all, Lallemant has a fair amount of posts but not too many, so she scrolls back a bit further just to be thorough, make sure she doesn’t accidentally forget something, because the last thing she needs right now is to make one more mistake. 

But then— 

That’s a photo of her. Why is there a photo of her on Lucas Lallemant’s Instagram? She’s quite positive she’s never met him before, and she doesn’t think Renaud would have tasked her with this case if she had. 

The post has a yellow heart under it, and she isn’t tagged in it or anything, but it’s undeniably her. She looks at Lallemant, asleep, then at Renaud, typing furiously. 

“Dr. Renaud?” she asks in a small voice, and he barely spares a glance. 

“Was that too big a task for you?” he chides, but she barely feels the sting, Lallemant’s phone falling from her hands. The screen cracks as it hits the floor, and that’s when Renaud gives her his full attention. 

“Why am I on his Instagram?” she asks. She’s starting to suspect she knows why, but she wants to hear it from him. Renaud’s face goes entirely blank, and she raises her voice. “Why is there a photo of me on his Instagram?”

“Chloé…” he begins, and she knows. 

“I erased him, didn’t I.” The realization hits her like a truck, and even though she can’t remember anything, she can feel the space where it’s all missing, like she’s finally found a part of her that’s been missing for too long. The weird gaps between her first and second year of high school make sense now, and even though she’s not entirely sure why she would erase Lallemant— Lucas— from her memory, the fact that she’s spent all night erasing a  _ boyfriend _ of his, she’s got a pretty good idea of what might have gone down there. 

Renaud doesn’t confirm, but his silence is enough. She shakes her head in disbelief. The rose colored glasses haven’t so much slipped as been torn off her eyes. “I can’t believe I thought this was the future… that this was innovative… it’s immoral.” It dawns on her that Lucille must have known too. “My entire life since I got this procedure has been a lie. Everyone lying to me twenty four seven because I was hurt and made a stupid decision when I was sixteen. And now I’ll never get that time back, good or bad as it was. And neither will he.”

She looks back down at Lucas. He looks peaceful now, breathing in small puffs. For all she knows, he was awful to her, but the pictures on his Instagram with his boyfriend, they tell a different story. He was happy, for a time at least, and even though things didn’t end well, who is she to take happy memories away from him, or anyone? Who is she to play god? 

“He’s been fighting it, hasn’t he.” It isn’t a question, and Renaud knows. “All these problems I’m having, it’s because he doesn’t want this to happen to him. He realized that he wants to remember, but I’ve been forcing him through the process anyway because I believed that I knew best, that  _ you  _ knew best.”

“He knew exactly what he was getting himself into,” Renaud says, and Chloé can’t take it anymore. She gathers her belongings and slips a key from Renaud’s discarded coat into her pocket as she does so. 

“I’m going to ruin you,” she says as she reaches the door.

Renaud barely flinches. “I knew you didn’t have what it took to be a revolutionary.”

She slams the door behind her, footsteps loud and brash on the stairs as she makes her way out of the building. Maybe she doesn’t have what it takes to be Renaud, but she’s always wanted to be her own person anyway, and maybe she can still make a difference. She calls a taxi to take her to the office, uses the key she stole to get inside, and gets to work. 

February 15, 2021

The clock strikes midnight, and Eliott’s heart can’t stop pounding in his chest. Lucille is asleep beside him, in her bed, and he wants to throw up, not for the first time tonight. He’s had this overwhelming feeling of wrongness in his chest all night, or all week, if he’s being honest. His relationship with Lucille is… strange, to say the least.

Sometimes it feels like she’s acting out a script, but he keeps forgetting his lines. It’s like she thinks they’re soulmates, but he feels the same way around her that he does in an empty room. In some ways, comforted, but mostly unnerved and lonely. He feels like he owes her an explanation, but also… he can’t do this anymore. He can’t be with her, pretending to feel things that he doesn’t. He’s not sure he knows how to feel anything at all. 

He thinks there’s something wrong with him, more than the usual things that he sort of knows how to deal with by now. Everyone looks at him strangely too, like they’re all in on some secret but won’t tell him the details. 

One mystery he’d really love the answer to is how he ended up living on Idriss’ couch, though he’s pretty sure they stopped talking a few years ago. The only explanation he can think of is that he had a manic episode that he doesn’t really remember the details of, but he’s pretty sure manic episodes can’t last for two years. 

He doesn’t dare say anything about it to anyone though, he doesn’t want them to think him crazier than they probably already do. 

Lucille hums in her sleep and tries to curl into him, and it sends another wave of nausea up his throat. He pushes her away without thinking and hops out of bed, searching for his clothes. She’d wanted to sleep with him tonight, but he couldn’t do it. Everything felt too off balance, but he explained it away by saying that he was too tired from his shift at the video store. Thankfully, she’d let it slide. 

He can’t let this go on any longer, it’s really not fair to her to pretend he’s all in when he isn’t, and he feels bad about it, but he also knows that it’s unfair to himself to force feelings and lure himself into false happiness. He’d done it in the past with Annie, and he doesn’t want to do it again. 

He finds a notepad in the kitchen and scribbles a note on it, knowing this is the worst possible way he could do this, but he’s something of a coward. If he did it face to face, he knows that Lucille would talk him down, convince him that he needs her, and he doesn’t want that, so he writes a note, straight to the point, and walks out into the night, deleting her number from his phone after blocking it. A bit overkill, maybe, but his steps come lighter and lighter as he does so, and the night air feels so much fresher, filling his lungs like it hasn’t in who knows how long. 

The air still doesn’t quite fill his lungs, but he thinks that’s because there’s still something missing. He’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to find whatever it is, but he’s willing to try. 

Above his head gleams the north star, Polaris, shining bright and true, as it always does. His heart beats a bit steadier in its presence, and he follows it all the way home, wherever that even is anymore. 

April 30, 2007

Lucas and Eliott are still laying in Lucas’ childhood bedroom when Lucas feels everything start to change. He knows in his bones what it means, and it’s like being hit by a truck. 

“Eliott,” he whispers, panicked, and Eliott’s arms tighten around his. 

In an equally small voice, Eliott responds, “I feel it too.”

And then everything dissolves around them.

March 22, 2019

Lucas is under the bridge at the petite ceinture, and he and Eliott are crying, but for a different reason this time. They found him, and they’re taking it all away again. There’s nowhere else to go, nowhere else to hide. 

_ You are not alone anymore _ , Lucas remembers saying, but it’s not true. Eliott is alone, and so is he. They’ll never belong to one another again.

March 13, 2019

Eliott’s arms wrap tighter around him as they’re snuggled up with one another in the park. In the distance Basile and Daphné are talking and Lucas knows he’s supposed to be making plans with Eliott, but he doesn’t have the energy to act out the script. What’s the point when none of it will matter in the morning?

March 8, 2019

Lucas tastes salt mixed with paint, and this beautiful moment, where he and Eliott truly became one for the first time, is now marred by sadness. 

“What else can we do?” Eliott asks, but his words are taken away by the wind as the world fades around them once more, drifting again into the past. 

February 16, 2019

Legs tangled, arms wrapped around one another tightly, light streaming through the curtains with a warm, contained glow. This was one of the happiest moments of Lucas’ life. Why did he sign his soul away, along with his happiest memories? What will be left for him after this? Will he even remember that he’s out and proud, that he grew more in two years with Eliott than sixteen years before that? 

February 15, 2019 

The rain is beating down, and for once Eliott and Lucas follow their script. Lucas raises his arms, and Eliott folds their hands together. Polaris shines brightly above them, and they kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and kiss— 

February 2, 2019

While Lucas plays the piano, he doesn’t look at the keys, but at Eliott. Eliott, who looks at him like he shines with the light of the moon, like their love was fated by the stars themselves. They both gave this all up over a petty fight. Erasing his problems should never have been the answer, even if Eliott did it first. And, honestly, he’s beginning to suspect Eliott had the same doubts into the process that he did. That he made an impulsive decision, because sometimes when things hurt you’ll make the worst decision of your life just to end that pain, and then he sat here, living this memory, and he knew that his life would forever be changed for the worse. 

“I love you,” Eliott says, like he didn’t back then.

Lucas doesn’t have to say it, he just played it on the piano. 

January 25, 2019

Eliott and Lucas are at the bus stop, and Eliott is wearing a green jacket. This was the only time Lucas ever saw him in that color, but it struck something in him. It felt like a new beginning, like growth. 

Eliott hands him a chocolate bar from the vending machine and he turns it over in his hands. This is where it all ends. 

It’s the end of January, and Lucas has a scarf wrapped around his neck, but he doesn’t feel particularly cold. He doesn’t feel much of anything. Tranquility has flooded his bones. 

“You taught me how to love. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to learn again,” Lucas says, but there’s no hurt in his voice, not anymore.

Eliott shakes his head. “You will.” 

He says it like he’s certain, like he’s seen the future and knows that there’s a life for Lucas beyond all of this. Lucas hopes that he’s right, but he’s not sure. He hopes that Eliott will be able to love again too, if anyone deserves it, it’s him. And he hopes that he finds it with someone who deserves him, someone who won’t tell him to leave and never come back.

Lucas wonders how much time they have left here. 

“I’ll be gone soon,” Eliott says, as if reading his mind.

“I know.”

Eliott looks at him, and it’s like Lucas is seeing him for the first time again, except every bit of curiosity in his eyes is replaced by sadness. “So what do we do now?” he asks. 

Lucas stares into Eliott’s eyes, his beautiful eyes, and then looks out into the street. He sees people bustling about, no clue that they’re trapped in a memory that will cease to exist. 

“We enjoy it.” Lucas looks back over at Eliott with tears in his eyes and holds out a hand. 

Eliott closes the space between them, the one bench seat they were both too scared to cross, and takes Lucas’ hand in his. Lucas rests his head on Eliott’s shoulder, and Eliott leans on top of him. Neither of them say a word, but they don’t have to. Everything has already been said, everything has already been felt. There’s nothing left for them but their love and the memory of it, both of which will be gone in a matter of minutes. 

Lucas licks his lips and thinks of one last thing to say, one last thing he needs Eliott to hear, even if this isn’t the real Eliott. 

“For what it’s worth, I’d do it all again. I don’t regret a single minute I spent with you, even if it led me here. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Lucas says, and Eliott’s grip on his hand tightens. Then, he’s pulling Lucas up to stand. Lucas has never felt their height difference as much as in this moment, when Eliott looks him in the eyes so deeply he’s afraid he might drown, then pulls him into a bone crushing hug that calms the waves in his heart and puts him entirely at peace. 

There’s no one on the streets anymore, and Lucas knows it’s almost the end. Just when things start to become fuzzy at the edges, Eliott brings his lips to Lucas’ ear and whispers, “Meet me at the petite ceinture.”

Then, in a flash all that’s left is the image of Eliott walking into the foyer, sitting down, and meeting Lucas’ gaze for a split second. 

Then, nothing.

February 16, 2021

When Yann shows up, he doesn’t even knock, just charges in. Lucas gives him a weak smile, and Yann pulls him into a hug without a word. He doesn’t know what prompted this, but Lucas wraps his arms around Yann just as tightly and lets Yann press a kiss to his shoulder. It tingles, for some reason, like a reminder of something he doesn’t remember. 

“Why didn’t you answer me yesterday? I was worried sick,” Yann says, and it sounds like he’s testing the waters, working his way up to what he wants to talk about. 

Lucas looks at his feet. Is now the time to tell Yann everything? About his sexuality… and Eliott? “I met someone,” he decides on, waiting to see Yann’s reaction before continuing.

Yann looks completely shocked, which confuses Lucas a bit, because it’s not like he’s  _ never _ been with anyone. He dated Sarah. Not that it was much of a real relationship, but still. 

“You met someone?” Yann repeats, and Lucas nods. “Um… ok. That’s not what I was expecting, I’ll be honest. Who is he?”

Now it’s Lucas’ turn to be taken aback. “Why would you say he?”

Lucas’ response seems to confirm something for Yann, and it doesn’t seem like a good thing. Nevertheless Yann tries to keep his face neutral, but he doesn’t have a response. 

“You know that I’m gay?” Lucas presses, and Yann shrugs. “How?”

“You told me,” Yann says stiffly, refusing to give anything more than that. Lucas blames his strange memory gap. He wishes he would have had the foresight to write something down about it, but oh well. Yann continues hesitantly, “So, you met someone?”

Lucas can barely hold back his smile. Maybe Yann will stop acting so weird once he sees how happy Lucas is. “I did. He— he’s incredible. I’ve never met anyone like him before. I know it’s only been a day but I just have this  _ feeling _ , you know? I think this could really be something.”

“What’s his name?” Yann asks, still not sounding all too excited.

“Eliott,” Lucas says with a blush, “Eliott Demaury.”

About a million emotions cross Yann’s face in a single second. Lucas cocks his head in confusion. “Do you know him—?”

“Yes, I fucking know him Lucas! We all fucking know him!” Yann yells, and then slaps his hand over his mouth. 

“What do you mean?” Lucas asks. 

Yann bites his lip, but then steels his jaw. “You don’t remember much of the last few years, do you?”

How does Yann know that? They haven’t even spoken about it. “No.”

“It’s because of him,” Yann continues, “Eliott.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“You and Eliott dated for two years. This apartment? Belonged to the two of you. You moved in halfway through our last year of high school. Fuck, I’m not supposed to be saying any of this to you, but you know what? Fuck that. You made a stupid decision, ok, so did he, but I’m not going to lie to you for the rest of your life, especially when you two fucking soulmate assholes already found your way back to each other,” Yann rambles, and Lucas has a hard time keeping up. 

Yann must sense his complete and utter confusion, because he braces his hands on Lucas’ shoulders, takes a deep breath, and says, “I’m going to tell you everything I know. It might sound crazy, but you know me. You know that I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.”

Lucas doesn’t know what to do or say, so he just nods, and Yann starts to talk. 

February 16, 2021

Eliott’s changing for work when there’s a knock at the door. Idriss isn’t home at the moment, but he figures he can take a message for whoever’s at the door. . 

At the door is a girl who looks to be a few years younger than him. She looks like she’s there with a purpose, and Eliott wonders if she’s going to try to sell him something. 

“Eliott,” she says, “I have to tell you something.” 

Even though she just referred to him by name, he looks behind him, making sure she’s actually here for him. “Who are you?”

“That doesn’t really matter, what matters is why I’m here.” Without invitation, she steps across the threshold and into Idriss’ apartment. 

“By all means…” he says belatedly, shutting the door behind her. She has a massive duffel bag with her and it looks stuffed to the brim with random shit. Purses have taken on a whole new meaning, apparently. 

“I’m Chloé, and I used to work for a place called Lacuna, Inc,” she begins, handing him a card. That name rings a bell, but he’s not sure why. Maybe he passed it on the street or something. 

She continues, “What Lacuna has been doing is extremely immoral, and frankly an imposition on the human mind that crosses a barrier that should never have been crossed.”

Sure, that sounds bad, but Eliott doesn’t know what it has to do with him. He hasn’t been signed up for any weird experimental drug trials recently, has he? 

“What do they do, exactly?” he asks, flipping the card over in his hands. 

“They erase people. Memories of them, at least. And I know it works because I only found out yesterday that I had the procedure done.” Her voice fractures at the end, and Eliott sort of wants to comfort her with a hug, but he’s also still extremely confused. 

She blinks up at him. “I’m here because you and I erased the same person.”

Eliott’s mouth runs dry. “Wh— what?”

“Lucas Lallemant,” she says, “We both erased him from our memories. I broke into the office last night and found my files, and it turns out that I erased him because he used me as a beard and then cheated on me with a guy, and I just couldn’t get over it. You’re the guy he cheated on me with.”

Her words are barely registering, all Eliott hears is a buzz in his brain. Lucas Lallemant. His Lucas. Lucas from last night, from this morning. But… why wouldn’t he have said something? Why did Eliott erase him in the first place?

“He didn’t tell me that,” Eliott says, and now it’s Chloé’s turn to be confused.

“What do you mean?”

He ignores this. “How  _ did  _ I know him? Why would I want to forget him?” 

Chloé holds the duffel bag tight to her chest. “The thing is… I don’t know if you really wanted to forget him. I think you were hurt, and you had an impulse, and they preyed on you like they did on me, and on many others, and now some of the best moments of your life are gone forever.”

Eliott still doesn’t understand. 

“You were with him for two years, Eliott,” she says, and all of the air rushes out of his lungs. All those gaps he thought must have been the product of an episode, the fact that he has no home address, Annie’s surprise when she heard from him, the way Lucas felt in his arms, how he’d almost said I love you in the late hours of the night. 

He must look catatonic, because she reaches over and places a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry to be dumping all of this on you, but you had to know. I’m releasing everyone’s files and belongings back to them, I just figured I’d start with you because I have a personal connection to your case.”

“Why did he pretend he didn’t know me?” Eliott asks. “When we were together yesterday?”

“You were together yesterday?” she sounds extremely shocked by this information.

He nods. “And this morning. We… I’ve never felt this way before, how I did around him.”

“What about Lucille?” 

His head snaps up, some of the fog clearing. “How do you know about Lucille?”

She grimaces. “That’s part of it. She worked at Lacuna with me. She was a part of your procedure. I think she fell a little bit in love with you, and took advantage of the situation, of your vulnerability. I would have stopped it if I’d known, I swear, but I didn’t find out until two nights ago, and I was a bit preoccupied at the time.”

Lucille. She’d taken Lucas from him and tried to put herself in his place. All the inauthenticity he’d felt with her makes so much sense now, and it makes him squirm to think how close she got to making him believe that they were in love. It’s appalling, and honestly, he can’t fully process it right now, because all he’s thinking is— 

“But why did Lucas pretend he didn’t know me?”

“Because he didn’t,” she says simply. “You erased him, and he couldn’t bear knowing you when you didn’t know him, so he erased you too. I was the one in charge of his case. I didn’t know that I’d erased him at the time, trust me.”

Eliott thinks of Lucas’ open smile, the way he melted at Eliott’s touch. “He erased me.”

“He didn’t want to.”

Eliott shoots her a pained look. “You keep saying that, but the fact is that it happened. To both of us. We must have wanted it to happen.”

“I have your audio and written files, I know everything from his process, and I can guess a lot about yours. Lucas was a wreck when he came in, and I don’t think anyone could have driven him away because he was that empty, that hurt. I know about your fights and what finally broke you, but I also know that, at a certain point, he started fighting. He hid from us and took you with him, he tried to wake himself up, he created whole new memories just to keep you in his head.” She glances at her lap. “But obviously, it wasn’t enough. Dr. Renaud knows what he’s doing, and he’s good at it. Too good.”

He imagines it all, and it’s painful to him, even though it shouldn’t be for someone he’s only just met. Maybe his heart knows better than his brain. 

Chloé continues, “The only reason Dr. Renaud could so easily wipe you out of his mind was because he had practice. Because he’d seen all these things happen before in one other case.” 

She meets his eyes, and Eliott knows what she’s going to say the second before she does. “You.”

It fractures something in his chest, or maybe the fracture was already there. Two whole years with Lucas. If he’d fought it, it couldn’t have been bad at all between the two of them. He doesn’t doubt he overreacted, and he doesn’t know what caused things to end between them and drive them here anyway, but he finds that he doesn’t care. He’s lost so much time already, it’s time to go make it up.

“I have to go,” he says, standing abruptly. 

“Wait!” She sets the duffle on the floor and unzips it. He doesn’t recognize anything on the inside, but it all feels familiar. “These are your things, the things that reminded you of him. We confiscate them for every subject, but your procedure was done recently enough that we haven’t tossed it yet.”

He reaches down and picks up a photo strip, and it’s like being punched in the gut. He and Lucas are making silly faces, but they look so in love. They were so in love. Everything in this bag is proof that he found the love of his life and let it go, too stupid or stubborn to see what he had. 

“There might be some things missing,” Chloé warns, “There was a lot missing from Lucas’ things, which I suspect Lucille has something to do with, but don’t worry. I plan on making everything right, and taking her down in the process too.”

Honestly, Eliott wasn’t totally worried about that, he’s too lost in memories he doesn’t have. He slips the photo strip into his pocket and stands. “Thank you,” he says. 

She smiles sadly. “It’s really the least I can do. I’m sorry I didn’t wake up and see how wrong this all was earlier. I’ll be sure to send your files and recordings and such back to you as well, see if it can help you heal and grow and relearn yourself.”

He nods, and pulls her into a hug. “Thank you,” he says again, and she hugs him back. 

He leaves the open duffel bag on the floor, which he’ll definitely have to explain later, but right now he’s on a mission. He walks Chloé out and they part ways a bit awkwardly, but once she’s out of sight, he breaks into a run. 

He’s not running away, though, he’s running home. 

February 16, 2021

When Lucas hears footsteps, he thinks it’s Yann, coming back to check on him. He hasn’t moved an inch since Yann left, and he doesn’t intend to for quite some time. He can’t stop listening to the voicemail Yann sent to him, playing it over and over and over again.

_ “Yann he just— he left. I made him leave and he left. I think it’s over, I think it’s really over and I hate him! I hate him because he left. He said he’d never leave and I told him that he wasn’t alone anymore but it was all bullshit! Fucking bullshit! I’ve never loved someone so much in my life, Yann. It hurts, and I feel like I’m dying, or maybe I’m already dead, and the slam of the door as he walked out is what killed me. It’s been two hours. He’s not coming back. He—” _

“Hi.” 

Lucas looks up, tears streaming down his face, and sees the very person a past version of himself had just been talking about. Eliott.

The voicemail is still playing, and Lucas doesn’t know how long Eliott has been listening to it. Of course, he doesn’t know it’s about him. 

“What are you doing here?” Lucas asks. His voice is a pale reflection of what it was earlier that morning, so full of life and love and joy. 

“Lucas,” Eliott says, and Lucas shatters. He can hear it in his voice, he knows that Eliott knows too. What they were. Who they were. 

Lucas breaks down into sobs, lifting his knees to his chest. All he can hear is his own panicked and distressed voice saying that Eliott is never coming back. That moment didn’t even happen a month ago, but it’s so far detached from Lucas’ current reality that it feels like another lifetime. He hears footsteps and wonders if Eliott is leaving again. Honestly, he wouldn’t blame him.

But then there are long, warm arms, wrapping around his body rocking him gently. He can feel Eliott’s cheek on the top of his head, and he cries even harder. “I know,” Eliott says softly, “I know.”

“I destroyed the best parts of myself,” Lucas whispers. He doesn’t fully intend to be heard, but it’s all he’s been thinking. Eliott lets go just enough to look Lucas in the eyes, tipping his head up with a finger.

“I don’t believe that for a minute.”

Lucas shakes his head. “I thought that I didn’t care much about love, but Yann told me that I once said to him that you are who you love, and when he said that, it made sense to me, to why I’m so empty now. I loved you, and then you were gone, but I didn’t know myself well enough to figure out what I was missing.”

“But you did,” Eliott argues, “You found me the very next day.”

Lucas glances down at the floor, and a tear falls from his eyelashes. “I don’t know if that’s enough anymore. You didn’t find  _ me _ .”

The voicemail has ended at some point while they’ve been talking, but that doesn’t mean Lucas doesn’t still hear it. Yann emphasized to him that the voicemail was the exception, not the rule, but that he shouldn’t just let this all play out exactly as it had before. If he wanted Eliott, they had to be on the same page, and Eliott had to want him just as much. 

Eliott’s quiet for a minute, and Lucas thinks he might not have any response. The truth can’t be denied when laid so plainly. No matter what they found in each other after they’d lost each other forever— or so they were supposed to— it didn’t change what happened before. Even if they couldn’t remember it.

“I fought for you,” Eliott says suddenly, and Lucas furrows his brows. He continues, “When I was in the procedure. Apparently I did everything I could to keep you, but in the end I wasn’t a match for them.” Lucas looks at the ground. It doesn’t change things, but it also does. Of course Eliott was a hero, even unconscious. 

“You did too,” Eliott finishes. 

Lucas’ eyes snap up. “How do you know this?”

“Chloé, this girl that used to work for them, she told me everything. She was in charge of your procedure, so she knows about that too.”

“Why didn’t she stop, then?” Why would she tell Eliott these things, acting like she had any moral high ground to stand on, if she’d seen Lucas fighting and hadn’t let him win? 

Eliott is tracing gentle designs on the back of his hand, and it feels so comfortable there, so familiar, that Lucas barely notices it at all. “It wasn’t her call, in the end. That’s why she came to me. She took all the files from Lacuna, and she’s going to make sure everyone knows how they’ve been taken advantage of.”

Lucas accepts this response, figures it makes as much sense as anything does to him right now. Eliott’s body is so warm beside his. 

“Eliott, why are you here?” He has to ask, because really none of this has to mean anything. They got rid of each other for a reason, who’s to say something bad won’t happen again? 

“Because you are who you love,” Eliott says like it’s simple, “And I love you.”

“You can’t love me, you barely know me.”

Eliott sighs. “You’re right. My brain doesn’t know you as well as it once did, but my heart knows you better than it knows itself. The moment I saw you at the petite ceinture, I think I knew. I went there every day, you know, and it was always empty, until one day it wasn’t. Our hearts are magnets, they can drift apart for a while, but they’ll always come back together.”

“How can you say that with such certainty? You left me, you know.” Lucas doesn’t know the extent to which Chloé explained things to him, if he knows the same things Yann told Lucas. 

Eliott rests his head on Lucas’ shoulder. “I can’t explain that away, and I’m not going to try. I just don’t think it was meant to end this way. I think we found each other at the petite ceinture for a reason, that we fought for each other for a reason. No matter what led to our breaking point, I don’t think it’s irreparable. Or, at least, it doesn’t have to be, if we don’t let it.”

Lucas wants to give in so badly. He wants Eliott in his arms at night, he wants soft kisses in the mornings and notes left around the apartment, he wants to relearn how Eliott takes his coffee, he wants to relearn  _ everything _ about Eliott. He tries to narrow down what’s holding him back, but comes up empty. There’s nothing holding him back from saying  _ let’s try again _ , from taking a chance finding the love he nearly lost forever. Nothing other than the knowledge that it didn’t work out, once. 

Lucas shifts so they’re still close, but can see each other better. Eliott’s wearing a bright green jacket, and to Lucas it looks like a new beginning. 

“I don’t want to end up where we were before.”

“I don’t either.”

They look into each other’s eyes, and Lucas swears he sees flashes of a life together, of moments lost to the wind. Different colored jackets, smiles hidden in the crooks of each other’s necks, piano keys, rain, hands intertwined, the soft morning light wrapping them up, keeping them safe and warm in each other’s arms. Maybe all of that happened, maybe none of it did, but Lucas swears that Eliott is seeing the same things. It’s clear in his expression. 

“Some people are just meant to be a part of each other’s stories,” Eliott says, like he’s quoting something, but Lucas doesn’t know the source. He doesn’t care, in all honesty. 

There’s a tap on the window as rain starts to come down from the sky above. Lucas stands up and holds a hand out to Eliott, who takes it hesitantly. He laces their fingers together and doesn’t let go. It’s not a verbal response, but it’s an answer. Some people are just meant to be a part of each other’s stories. 

Eliott’s face, with dried tear tracks on his cheeks, splits into a grin, and Lucas feels himself mimicking the emotion. 

It’s raining in Paris and there are two boys with magnetic hearts and magnetic souls. They might not remember what that means, but they’ll never be so lost again that they won’t find an answer. The thing about magnets is that they’re made to detach, but every time their magnets detach, like clockwork, they stick back together, stronger than before. 

It’s raining in Paris and there are two boys on the threshold of love, of healing, and they’re looking into each other’s eyes. They don’t say a word, but they run out the door together, hand in hand, and then it’s raining in Paris, and there are two boys in the rain, holding hands and running away from everything but towards each other. 

They end up in a warehouse covered in graffiti. There’s a mural on the wall, but this time they both know what it means. One of the boys, the artist, sprays his own silhouette on the wall beside the boy with wild hair.

Neither of them will ever be forgotten again.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading !!! i hope u enjoyed :,) i've been workin on this one for a Minute
> 
> the ending was originally a bit more ambiguous like the movie, but u know me i'm a sucker for a happy ending
> 
> pls lemme know what u think!! ily all
> 
> find me on tumblr: kieunora


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